Life Chapter 2: Confusion

The days seem to bleed into one another, an incoherent mess of monotony. They’ve lost their luster, the gentle, hazy glow of the freedom of adolescence. Every morning is a battle to face rather than an adventure waiting to happen, a burden rather than an opportunity. It wouldn’t be so bad, maybe, if facing the struggles of growing up wasn’t so isolating. Everyone has their own problems to worry about now, and it’s made them forget the things that make the hardships worth it. 

One day, they’ll realize that there are far more important things than the future.

How could it be that we were just at the lake, stretched out on the grass, and sharing our deepest secrets and biggest dreams? It feels as if that day was years ago, but I remember it as if it happened yesterday. The sun’s warmth against our skin, the breeze tousling our hair, the tree’s canopying over our heads. The way we linked pinkies and promised one another that, no matter what, we’ll always have each other. But one by one, they all went their separate ways, leaving me with nothing but the stifling expectations of people who never cared the way they did. My world had dulled from technicolor to black and white, and I had faded with it, too. I still don’t know what went wrong. What changed. Why we had been left the moment that things got difficult, even if we had sworn that we could help. Maybe some promises really are meant to be broken. 

Is it possible that in just a few months, those promises we made had shattered under the weight of reality, leaving behind splintered fragments too small to ever put back together? Jagged and scattered, an accident waiting to happen. I had tried to put everything back together, assemble the pieces in a way that resembled the way they were before. I only wanted to remind us all why they were made in the first place. The effort left me with nothing but scars. Though I knew we wouldn’t always be together, take the same paths, I didn’t expect to have to say goodbye so soon. Perhaps being lonely is better than being hurt.  

I never asked for any of this. The obligation, the pressure, the suffocating grip of a life plan I had no say in. I hadn’t believed them when they said to enjoy the summer, because it was the last one where I could be myself. I took it all for granted. Now, I’ve not just abandoned my friends… I’ve abandoned myself. I’m nothing more than a mere doll, pushed and poked and prodded until I assume the form the player desires most. One day, I’ll find the courage to cut my own strings and forge my own path. But until then, I am irrevocably attached to a narrative I did not write. 

I truly thought they would understand. It was nothing personal; if anything, they were the part of my life that made all the trouble worth it. They reminded me that, even with my duty to my family, I was still a kid. I still deserved to have fun, to enjoy my childhood. But life sometimes has other plans for you, ones that don’t align with our own hopes and dreams. It forces us to choose our real family or our chosen one, our duty or our desire, sparing no one in its warpath against idealism. I don’t regret my choices. Not when it means that the people I care about have a better chance to . But I still can’t help but wish that things were different. That even if it didn’t make sense to them, they knew that I still cared, even when I was no longer around. 

It’s a funny feeling, seeing those you considered family when they’re now nothing more than strangers. How can you go from knowing everything about a person to barely anything at all? From being able to count the freckles on their nose and pick out the exact shade of their eyes to not recognizing them as they walk past? 

It’s been said that a lot can change in a year, but somehow, it feels like everything changed in a single season. As the leaves began to change color and fall, so did we, nothing left to remind one another of our existences but an imprint of who we used to be.