november 16

Lately, I’ve had a weird obsession with going through my old things. I can’t seem to bare parting with anything I own- hence the old sheets underneath my bed and the notebooks sitting in the back of my closet from middle school full of crushes and song lyrics and math notes. Coupons and love letters that expired months ago hang on the bulletin board behind my bedroom door and pictures of people that I don’t even associate with anymore hang on the walls. 

There are days that I can’t wait to start my future and the next day I wish I could grab the hands of the clock and hold them in place until Im ready to let go. I’m still trying to figure out how it’s possible to feel both of these emotions at the same time. I try to avoid thinking about these things but the reality of it is one day, the boy I thought I loved for two years won’t be a twenty minute drive from my house if I decide I love him again and the girl that I grew up with won’t live across the street from me anymore. My sister won’t sleep in the room next to mine and there will be one pair of shoes at the door when I get home instead of four.  

It is so strange that everything that once was so familiar will soon be so distant. 

I don’t have forever anymore. Days go by and they will turn into months, and before I know it winter will turn into spring and I will pack up my notebooks and sheets and old books. I will move into a small room that has been home for hundreds of teenagers before me, feeling the same exact way, and that comforts me and scares me at the same time.

It is a bittersweet feeling to end your life but begin a new one.

Your whole life, people tell you to appreciate the little things because it flies by. I remember being a freshman and rolling my eyes at my parents and grandparents as they reminisced on their high school days. It is so cliche of me to agree, but as I sit here staring at the box of things my mother kept from my childhood and realize that it is almost full, I realize they were right.