The way that I fiddle with the skin hanging off of my nails hasn’t changed.
The muddy, uninteresting color of my eyes hasn’t changed.
So, I guess I haven’t changed?
The intensity with which I experience everything has changed.
The time I fall asleep has changed, slowly being pushed further and further into the delirious, ever-darkening night.
The ceiling has changed.
I don’t miss my old ceiling, but I don’t love this one significantly more.
I’ve been suspiciously sentimental from an early age.
Before I switched bus stops, I would cut through my neighbor’s lawn each day, walk on the short road to my house, and think.
I would stare at the ground and just think, unwinding from the obnoxiously influential and undoubtedly loud bus ride.
I’d just stare at the paved road, often kicking a rock until it fell into a drain, thinking.
Who knows what I thought about most of the time; those worries and dreams are far away from me now.
But, I remember some of my thoughts.
I remember thinking about how time was going to fly and how, in one year, I’d be walking the same path, thinking about how, in another year, I’d be walking the same path, thinking the same thing.
I don’t know what was wrong with me. Unable to live in the moment from the second I could experience moments.
I don’t know what is wrong with me.
At some point, I went into autopilot, and I can’t figure out how to undo it. The automated processes aren’t meant to deal with turbulence, so I watch it shake me, frozen as the controls shut down.
By fourth grade, I spent every single afternoon walk home thinking about the future, and at some point, I had another time-obsessed thought.
“One day, I’m going to be a senior in high school, walking home on this road, thinking about this exact day, and thinking about how smart I was for knowing that time flies.”
Who’s going to tell her?
So many things are wrong with that statement because so many things change, but she has the idea. I don’t know if I ever truly believed I would make it this far.
The main discrepancy is the fact that a majority of seniors do not ride the bus. I adore my sentiment, nonetheless.
I haven’t ridden the bus since fifth grade.
Also, I haven’t seen that road since December.
I feel odd about the fact that I didn’t dream of leaving; I guess I assumed it wasn’t a possibility.
Although I left the pebble-plastered pavement behind, the fantasy of it all is banging on my door, begging for the joyous connotation it once held.
