Over the last year or two, I’ve learned more about myself than I ever have before. It takes a lot for me to get up in the morning, I can’t eat yogurt as a meal for more than two days in a row and I still can’t walk in heels.

I’ve also been reminded of some things that I always knew but never really took the time to acknowledge.

I’m easily distracted at the worst times. For example, I’ve already been taking breaks from writing this column to stare out the window of the Ionian office. I’ve been following a member of the track team running laps around the field with my eyes, and then when I lose him to the side of the field being blocked by the wall, I change my focus to the security guard directing traffic and wonder if he ever gets lonely out there.

And I’m back.

The point of my tangent is that no matter what qualities about myself I choose to accept or simply bury, I’m always going to be incredibly overdramatic.

If you’re my friend and you’re reading this, you might be thinking, “It took this long for you to figure that out?” or “I realized that when you spent that night crying outside of the bar because your boyfriend was wearing the same color shirt as the shot girl.”

Another example of my drama queen tendencies: that really happened. Except it wasn’t a shot girl. I added that part in for dramatic effect.

There I go again.

An added bonus: when I write columns I pretend I’m Carrie Bradshaw and my inner voice sounds like Sarah Jessica Parker.

I think I finally realized that I might be tipping the scale towards crazy more than I had hoped when I sat back and watched myself cry alone in my room listening to Adele. It wasn’t the funny kind of Adele-triggered cry that Bill Heder had in that SNL skit, either. It was a really sad and pathetic cry followed up by taking a personal tray of deep fried Oreos from Blackboard Pizza to the face.

When I thought I would spend the rest of my life dry heaving alone with chocolate rings around my mouth, I remembered the most important lesson I learned while attending an all girls Catholic high school – misery loves company.

And so I finished my last deep fried Oreo (throwing it away would have been a sin), got up and looked in the mirror. What I saw was a girl wallowing in her own self pity and replacing love and belonging with chocolate. I remember thinking, “How disgustingly cliché of you.”

But that was it. I realized that by wasting my life staring in the mirror, I was missing out on the comfort and compassion of all of my friends. It’s safe to say I’ve landed just about an inch away from my rock bottom this semester, but I certainly wasn’t left to pick up the pieces alone.

Since I was little, I’ve been blessed with great friends. I may have always wanted to be friends with Cory Matthews, but I was happy with what I had. Even when they had their own bad days, they found time for mine. I’ve always been grateful.

More so than ever, though, it seems like we all have our own problems – and I mean huge problems, forget bad haircuts or sleeping through alarm clocks.

I have a friend who parked her car in the Murphy lot only to have it hit by an ignorant driver who fled the scene.

I have another friend who, despite being the queen of time management, is finding it hard to stay alive in, what I like to call, the Being Involved Balancing Act. Not to mention, she’s a Jets fan.

I have another friend going through the hardest breakup of her life. I’m right there with her, in every sense of the phrase.

I think that it’s in shared misery that we form our strongest bonds and share the truest love. So in some outrageously ironic way, should we be thankful for our misery?

Am I saying my friend should be thankful for her mechanics bill? No. Should my friend embrace what is soon to be a head full of grey hair? Definitely not. Should my friend and I rejoice in being dumped? Probably not.

Should we get together over dinner and talk for hours about how much we hate bad drivers, tight schedules and the entire male population? Absolutely. And we should order a round of deep fried Oreos for dessert.

If we, as friends, have learned anything out of this funny thing we call life, it’s that no matter what happens or how far we fall, we’re always going to have each other. Whether one of us in on cloud nine while the other is laying at rock bottom, we’re going to be there, chocolate on our face and all.

So before you wave your white flag and surrender to rock bottom, grab a friend. See a movie, have a drink. Live your life and try to make the most of your misery.

I know – I’m getting progressively cliché as I go along so I should probably wrap this up. If you take anything from this column, just know that misery may love company but happiness will always love it more.

To contact The Ionian’s Meaghan McGoldrick, e-mail her at [email protected]