markrosewater:

The summer after my sophomore year I was supposed to participate in a foreign exchange program where I was going to live with a family in another country for the summer. They ended up taking more students than they could place, so I didn’t end up getting to participate.

I had purposefully kept my summer open and I found out it wasn’t happening at the last moment, so I had a whole summer with nothing planned. My mom realized I was bummed so she had me come with her on a talk she was doing in the northeast. The idea was we could do a road trip and look at colleges while we were traveling. Her colleague had a daughter the same age as me so they were doing the same thing.

In Boston, we ended up going to Boston University because my mom’s friend’s daughter was interested in it. I had never given the school much thought.

While there, I discovered they had a College of Communications. I fell in love instantly and Boston University quickly became my number one college choice. I would later get accepted and be a student there for four years.

On my graduation day, I thought back to that day I found out I was not getting placed in the foreign exchange program and how devastated I was and realized if it hadn’t happened that I wouldn’t have ended up at Boston University, something that had led to four wonderful and happy years.

That’s when I realized that things that might seem horrible at the time could actually be blessings in disguise. Life is a twisty path and it’s often hard to see around the bend. So things that might seem bad in the present might lead to something awesome in the future. So the next time something bad happened, think of it as a possibility for something good.

Wishing you a bright and happy future. Happy Birthday!