The air around me lays thick and humid on my body. Right above me I hear a lonely owl hooting. The constant chirp of crickets surrounds me. I sit, my knees pulled up to my chin and my eyes closed to the world around me.
After really hard days sometimes I come out here to the woods behind my house and just sit and listen to the night sounds. I'll close my eyes and try not to think about life.
When I was little I used to dream of the day when I'd turn eighteen and be old enough to move out of the house and make my own decisions; decide my own fate.
Haha. I wish my little self could see me now. yeah right. Life isn't really all it's cracked up to be. When you suddenly have to face it, it's not quite that amazing. There are so many things that you never really count on. Like college and money and decisions.
Right now it's just me and the outdoors, though. And I try to forget about everything else. I let the night sounds and the wind take me away. A droplet of water splashes onto my knee. and then another. and another. But I sit still. The rain swells into a torrent, and I let it soak through my sweatshirt and jeans, washing over me.
The rain mixes with tears that suddenly start falling down my face. I can't hold them in for some reason. I really hate crying, especially when there's no exact reason for it. It makes me feel like I'm weak and fragile.
But that's what I am, right? weak and fragile. even though I don't like it. even though I try not to be. I thought maybe by my eighteenth birthday I'd be a little stronger than this. But it almost seems like the older I get the more helpless I am.
Sometimes I can trick myself that I'm not that way. And sometimes, every once in a while, I actually am able to convince myself that maybe I've got this "living life" thing figured out.
But mostly I know that that's not true. and I just feel so achingly alone.
Now the wind starts picking up. The sounds I heard before are now all drowned out by the heavy rain that's dancing down around me. I finally stand up. Maybe it's time for me to get inside. I start to walk back to my house. Two steps, and I see a flash of lightning and then hear thunder; shaking the ground beneath me and reverberating through my skull.
It hits me then. a thought. piercing through me.
Am I really alone? Is that really what I think? A gnawing ache starts right under my rib cage.
I am feeble. I don't have life figured out. I sit down, still a ways from my house, and once again tears start pouring down my cheeks.
I don't get up for a while. When I do I look up, blinking through the heavy rain, and see the stars covering the sky above my head, like one colossal artwork.
and I realize that maybe I'm not so alone as I thought.