Dear P,

Somewhere between my bed in the morning and my bed tonight something very interesting happened. I’m not going to lie, I started this letter with all intentions of telling you how much I hate everything, how much I hate you even, but I can’t make myself do that. I mean, everyone had a bad day every now and then, right? Why should I take it all out on you? It’s not exactly fair for you to get all of the heat for something you didn’t even do in the first place. It’s not like you control the world, it’s not like you’re god.

It was just one of those days where everything that could have gone wrong did. I woke up late because my alarm just did not go off. To this moment, I still don’t know why, but nevertheless I was running late. As such, I didn’t have time to make my morning cup of coffee to driving to school was painful. I could barely keep my eyes open and I almost got into a wreck four times or so. As I was rushing to school, I got pulled over. In all of the years I’ve been speeding down that damned road and the cops choose today to pull me over. To make matters worse, when he saw how anxious I was he pestered me as to whether or not I was on something. The man would not take no for an answer and almost arrested me for possession of a drug that he never saw. After nearly twenty minutes of arguing with this cop, I walked away with a speeding ticket that is going to put an interesting dent in my wallet.

After I finally got to class I realized I missed a quiz. Nothing like that to start off the beginning of a new semester. The professor would not hear me out no matter what I tried to tell him so I had to take the zero. He said he’d think about possibly letting me make it out at another date, but judging from the look he gave me I could tell that I am not going to be one of his favorite students. Nothing like having a teacher severely dislike you on the first day of classes. I basically hid in the back of the rest of my classes as I listened to first lectures and watched as these men and women thought that their class was the only class everyone was taking. I really hate that when professors act like we have all the time in the world to work solely on their class and their material.

It was not until after my classes ended that the day began to turn around. It was strange because I was city in the campus coffee stop when I realized that I was okay. As angry as I was about everything I suddenly found myself in a good mood. Here I was, in college, a young person ready to take on the world, and I was stressing about being late, about a stupid speeding ticket, about all of these small and stupid things that would never effect my life in any real way. It was like a slow realization that I needed to start looking at the big picture, that I needed to stop focusing on all of the small things in this world and see that things aren’t nearly as bad as I paint them sometimes.

On the way home, I saw a car wreck and it really began to fall into place. I pulled over immediately and ran toward the remains of the car. Standing outside, bleeding from a cut to the head but seemingly okay, was a woman who couldn’t have been much older than me. She was shaking, she seemed scared, and I startled her a bit when I placed my hand on her shoulder. She turned around, eyes wide, as I asked if she was all right. She nodded before breaking down, crying, and I pulled this complete stranger into my arms and told her it was okay, that she was alive, that she walked away, and that it was only a car after all. When the cops arrived, the one from earlier saw me but didn’t say a word. The woman thanked me up and down as she was taken to the hospital and she told me that she wanted my name so she could thank me somehow. I declined and told her that I didn’t need that, I didn’t need to be repaid, got in my car and drove home.

It could have been me in that car just as easily as it was her, the accident could have been worse if it was me since I tend to drive angry, and were it not for that realization in that coffee shop I could have just as easily been one the one breaking down on the side of the highway, overwhelmed with a feeling of relief to simply live. So, tomorrow, even if my alarm doesn’t go off for some god forsaken reason or I’m late for class, I’m going to live. After all, we only get one life, why worry about the little things?