My Mother Saved My Life

It was the hardest year of my life and all I wanted was a little guidance. I was 14 years old and stuck in a place that I hated. My high school was killing me, and they had forced me onto medication I didn't want to take. I hated myself and everything around me. My parents watched, helpless, while their baby girl fell apart in front of them.

One day, after a particularly complicated ordeal at school, my mother was driving me to my cousin's soccer game. We stopped in the parking lot of the local high school, to wait until the game started. We started discussing where I was at my school and in my life, and pretty soon I was sobbing in the front seat. My mother, heartbroken at seeing me so upset, told me she had something she wanted me to listen to.

She proceeded to put on To Ramona, a cover of the Bob Dylan song. She told me that the first time she'd heard it she'd thought of me, and that she wanted me to always remember the lines in it. To this day, I remember that day and this song as my moment of hope, my light in a world that felt entirely dark. My mother saved me that day, from myself and the temptation of giving up.