solar smiles

glower:

Hi, I’m Kristin Bauer and I want to tell you a story that was very meaningful to me. There was a photo of something I kept on my bedstand for years that got me through the tough times. You know, there’s many things in my life that had been challenging, and also this career is sort of challenging, but I… this was years ago, and I hope I won’t cry. But, uh. I was going through the death of a lot of friends. I had - my dad died, my best friend killed himself, and I had taken a trip to New York City for New Year’s Eve. I thought this would cheer me up. I love New York City. And I arrive and I get sick. I get the worst flu of my life and I’m so lonely and I’m so sad and it’s that holiday time of year. And I tried - I just wanted to go home. And I just wanted to be in my house with my dogs and my cats and something familiar. And I was - I knew that I wasn’t suicidal at that moment but it was the closest I had ever been to… If something else happened in my life, I wasn’t sure I would be able to see enough positive things to stick around. I could see the edge. And that was the first time I’d ever really had that. And so I moved my flight up to get home - to my safety net - and a blizzard hit. I got in the car to go to the airport and we had to turn around and go back. I had no money at the time. We get back to my cheap hotel and I say, “I need my room back”, and they say, “sure, $400 a night”. And I was gonna be there for days, so I fork over the credit card and I went up to my room and I just cried and cried and I was so low. And fell asleep and woke up and thought, ‘well, I might as well, you know, go get something to eat, I guess’, and I walked outside, and this was the thing. I have never seen anything so beautiful. And New York was like this magical, Narnia wonderland. And people were, you know, cross-country skiing down 5th Avenue. And Central Park was some sort of beautiful, otherworldly thing, and I thought, ‘I’m so lucky to have seen this’. You know, if you don’t live in New York, this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing that I got to see and I took so many pictures. And I thought, ‘you just never know what’s around the corner’. You just never know. And I thought to myself, ‘just stick around and see. It gets better’. And that picture was literally next to my bed until it fell apart. So that, um, is just one of those true things in life. Stick around; it gets better. (x)

(Source: tadfield)