Like the Tides
***I wrote this my senior year of high school and thought I would share it here***
Cold, dead winters lead to cool, rainy springs. Those springs are followed by deathly hot summers that drastically cool into an excellent example of change: Fall.
Fall is the definition of change. The leaves begin to change colors, which paint an amazing picture for our eyes. The heated summers drop suddenly to cool and even colder temperatures that lead into winter. Those same changing leaves begin to leave the trees bare and dead looking. People pull out jeans, coats, and sweaters; they start cranking the heat and snuggling under blankets. People’s attitudes seem to change. Often times, they go from happy, giddy people into being more confused and stressed that leads to unhappy and angry winters. The days are getting shorter, creating a gloom on peoples emotions and the world around them. The green summers turn into a forest of color that turns dimly gray.
People’s bodies change. They grow taller. As they become adolescents, they become male and female more distinctly. Their views of each other change. Boys and girls no longer have cooties, they now have things that appeal to the eye; they appeal to all of our senses causing a wave of emotion never experienced before. We begin to change for the people we love: sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
School changes. Beginning with a simple social aspect, you soon learn the basics of living: spelling, adding, subtracting, etc. From there, things begin to become increasingly more complex, the views of the world change from a simple coloring book to trying to understand how everything works to its smallest part. Our minds grow and begin to suck up knowledge and our understanding of things becomes clearer, yet more complex at the same time. We understand some things more, and other things less. We long for simplicity again.
Just as the tides change from high to low back to high again, our lives change in many ways. The world around us changes, as well. My life has changed in so many ways; it is hard to remember it all. I sometimes long for the simplistic, carefree life of a kid. I no longer remember those days, but cannot help but think how much better they must be sometimes.
I often wish girls had cooties again AND that I was afraid to catch them, that they are bad for me. I miss the days of playing in the mud rather than sitting inside doing homework (if I actually decide to do it), reading a book, or most commonly sitting at my computer. I miss the days of 1 + 1 = 2 rather than the partial derivative of x^3-xy^2+xyz+xz-y. As much as I miss that, I still long to know more: to learn as much as I can.
This fall I had to accept a change I did not want to accept. My girlfriend broke up with me. From that, I changed my attitude and caused a lot of pain between people and made rifts I am not sure I will ever be able to bridge again. Things change. I cannot do anything about that, but hope that my yet even newer change in attitude can help begin to heal some of those wounds.
I go to college next year. It is going to change. I will make new friends and lose touch with old ones. I will learn new things. I will be at a new place and experience “life on my own” for the first time. After that, I will experience true life on my own and will no longer be working part time jobs but experience a career of the same thing day in and day out. Things change.
As I talk about this, I am reminded of a movie: American Pie 2. Kevin had a hard time adjusting to change. It was not that he did not know it was there, he simply did not want to believe it. He wanted things to be the same, go back to the “good ol’ days.” It would never happen. It takes him an entire summer with a bunch of friends and an ex-girlfriend to figure that out.
It took me two months to figure that out. Things change and sometimes can never be the same. The only thing we can do is keep our heads up and make the best of it, roll with the punches and adjust. I have to remember the good things of life, the things I am blessed with. I know I cannot change the past, and I can do nothing with the future but live my life now and be the best I can.
