She was the top dog, and she felt like it.
Walking through the halls of the middle school, she held an air of confidence. The seventh graders looked up to her; this was her year. She felt so old and so powerful.
She was 13. A fresh teen ready to take on the world.
She had no idea that Change was chasing her.
She could not outrun it.
Yet she could not face it.
Change attacked her; it lunged for her throat and threatened to pull her into its dark, unfathomable depths.
She lurched away, she kicked, and she screamed—she never looked it in the face as she struggled. Change almost won. Change almost claimed her as its own as she nearly became another dark, indistinctive face in the depth of Change. She learned at the year of 13 that Change is inevitable, as cliché as that sounds.
She reached the surface of Change’s ocean and swam—as though she was a fish born from the depths of Change’s waters—to the shore of certainty.
But, certainty never came. The shore got farther and farther the more she swam in its direction. The year she was 13, she knew her comfort would only last so long, but she was tricked into it every time.
Change lured her in by making her believe where she finally found “certainty” and comfort was permanent; then, it would strike. Change would grab her legs and pull her down before she would—still not looking Change in the face—break “free.” And the cycle would start anew.
At the young old age of 13 in eighth grade, she learned that she was not invincible, and her struggle against Change would be never-ending.
She believed she would never see the face of Change and that Change would never see hers.
Four years later, at 17, she is again in a battle against Change after four years of false certainty and calm. She is being dragged down again.
But something is different this time.
She is older now and would like to believe she is wiser, too.
She has faced high school. She has faced getting a job. She has faced making new friends after losing old. She has faced the loss of loved ones. She has faced a lot, and yet, she still does not know the face of Change.
At 17, four years after learning her first lessons from Change, she still has much to learn.
At 17, she turns and faces Change.
At 17—looking at Change’s face—she decides not to fight this time.
She feels serenity under the waves of uncertainty and opens her arms to embrace Change.
