New Victoria Day, New Me: I Turned Heartbreak Into Growth, and Celebrated With the Fireworks

Standing there at Woodbine Beach, I saw the sparks and flares fly in the sky clearer because my eyes weren’t as heavy as they were last Victoria Day. This time, it felt like those fireworks were for me, celebrating how far I’ve come since last year. In May of 2025, I was struggling to find myself after a break-up. In May of 2026, I found my stability.

I remember being 15 in the soft warmth of late May and feeling more lost than ever, strung between different kinds of love, the illusion and infatuation of it, and my loyalty to my family.

I felt like I was disassociating from myself. I could only watch myself struggle in the worst lose-lose situation for a dense child in a relationship. I lied about being in one and proved my parents right about how naïve I could be. Not only did I feel so much guilt and shame for so carelessly lying and thinking about myself, but I felt heartbreak and betrayal. Like any teenager, I was embarrassed to think that my parents were right, and I carried that weight heavily on my shoulders.

I carried that weight longer than I should have. My eyes felt heavy and tired from crying every time I found myself alone, and I always felt weak.

What I remember most were my emotions during that time. I felt loneliness and loss, because now I had to find stability in my whirlwind of emotions and how to mitigate my badly intensified codependency issues. But above all, I felt hollow.

An empty shell of myself that was drained because I didn’t recognize who I was and what I achieved under all this pain. I hurt myself in the process of loving, something I thought to be most forgiving to me.

At that moment, I looked up to the sky, desperately wanting to feel something other than sorrow when glittering golden sparks filled the night sky. How I wanted to feel its magic like I had before when the flares brought light to my eyes, but I could only blink away tears that obscured the fireworks before me.

Frankly, I had no idea when or how this would all end. I was so clueless, and it didn’t help my downward spiral. Alas, I’d come to remember that there’s always a good outcome if you seriously believe you can make one for yourself.

I found myself focusing on people who truly cared about me, like my parents and closest friends, finding love, safety and stability within them.

With my parents, I asked for forgiveness and rebuilt their trust with honesty about my feelings and what weighed on me. My friends made me regain faith in my character when I doubted myself. I found what I was looking for with their help.

The people who told me to talk to them when I needed anything didn’t help much, but the people who took the initiative to show up for me because they knew I needed someone did. For instance, my vulnerability at this time was never an inconvenience to one of my best friends. I didn’t want to talk, but he’d call me, pretending it was for gaming, to confirm that I was okay and keep me company. What helped was the fact that he never forced me to talk but made me feel safe enough to do so by staying by my side until he knew I felt better. When I was alone, that was the kind of friendship I needed most.

During this, I realized the importance of my own mental health over other people’s convenience. When I cried, I only needed the people who always stayed. When I voiced my concerns, I only needed the people who understood me and weren’t offended by my boundaries. When I felt like myself again, I kept the people who cared for me all throughout my turmoil.

I’m eternally grateful for the people who helped me figure out how I felt, and the ones who helped me get out of my head, like my brother Niko. His tradition of us at Woodbine Beach viewing the Victoria Day fireworks every year relieved my numbness and gave me something seemingly small but so meaningful to look forward to.

Slowly, but surely, the June sun that shone bright in the sky represented a new light at the end of the tunnel for me, and a new beginning.  My recovery wasn’t pretty. There was no formal therapy or intervention, but there were meaningful conversations during bubble tea runs with my mom. Little things like these restabilized me and kept me alive when I didn’t know how I’d go on.

For the first time since 2020, I could safely say that I was genuinely happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life. That hallmark in my life awoke a non-conditional kind of confidence in me.  Even in tears, I still knew that I was strong and not ashamed of my emotional self. I started grade 10 completely anew, with new friends, and a newer mindset that I’d always be stronger than what tries to stop me.  I’m 16 now, and my feet are planted in the ground much stronger than before. I saw how the firework lights danced in the sky and felt pride when my heart exploded in euphoria, because I felt sheer joy and nothing else that day. This time around, I came to accept that what is not meant for me will leave, and I should let it. I grew up around the grief that came with its absence, and instead of saying, “it feels like this will never end,” I say, “I don’t know when it will end, but it will because I can withstand it.”  With this, I became a stronger woman because I had the volition to do so.