It Can All Change Like That

Summer is almost gone.

I've graduated.

I've lived in a new state.

There are so many new things I've experienced in the mere two months I've been at camp.

Like friendship.

And love.

And loved ones I'm supposed to leave and let go.

We have our jobs to do and here I am trying to let everyone do them but I'm afraid to release my grip.

What if I never see them again?

What if I never see this place again?

What if I can't make it through another lonely winter?

What if I can't do this?

I can't read ahead. Lesson #1 learned.

Lesson #2: faith is worth more than sight. Believe and breathe out.

But lesson #3 is the one I fear more than all the others: sometimes things end and you must remain here.

Because lesson #3 is the one where I hug compatriots goodbye and watch the summer fade into the rear window. It's the part of the book where I'll run after the one person in the world that I didn't know I would be aching for so much that I wouldn't want to try making myself look up at the world anymore when I walk. This is when I go back, silently feeling and thinking and perhaps finding a splinter of understanding in someone back home but maybe that splinter will become a spear in my own heart when it returns to me void.

But the summer's not over yet. Winter has not come and the leaves have not yet begun to bleed and fall. And my friends are never truly gone even if I can't see them. We live in each others' memories now. We go with them wherever they will go. We lived lives that meant something to someone else. Besides, what if this has all been prologue and now comes the characters' victories? Even if it comes in bitterness the people have already won. And isn't that the point of living?

So don't read ahead, dear reader and dear writer. You'll spoil the reading if you try to guess the ending.