Writing Practice 6/8

I’m at an intersection, but there are no stop lights.

Instead, there are sad, drooping trees with leaves that sway like wind chimes by my side. In the distance is a pathetic excuse for a sledding hill, made more appealing by the pink light quickly disappearing behind it. Behind me is a dark, noisy creek with no fish to call it home. Before me is a vast stretch of green earth that’s seen the soles of infinite children run across it.

There are no vehicles at this intersection.

Other than my mom’s silver mountain bike — thrown haphazardly amongst the weeds — there is no sign of anyone else trying to cross this intersection. It’s just me, sitting on the slanted rock where I used to ponder the thoughts that crowded my curious young mind.

Today, those thoughts are a little different than they were back then.

Yes, I still pine for romances that will never be and let friends who don’t value our relationship upset me, but there are new thoughts, too. There are new subjects to ponder, new unanswered questions to worry about. There are unpacked suitcases to fill, checks to write and a plane to catch. There are student loans to pay, people to meet and a job to get done. There are countless knowns and unknowns, and there is a new story in which only the first page has been written.

This is an intersection between the past, present, and the future.

For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m stuck between the different phases of time. When I sit criss-crossed in my room, surrounded by four alarmingly pink walls, I look at old photos and dance ribbons and award certificates and camp scarves and collectible teddy bear figurines. I carefully slide them off the shelves as a mini dust tornado swirls through my nostrils, and I’m reminded of how I got to this point.

But when I scroll through my camera roll, I come across the screenshot of a job offer that will define the years to come. I re-read the sentence describing the increase in vacation days offered after a year, and I can’t help but wonder how I’ll spend them. I look at my “Flo-rida Bucket List,” the piles of clothes in my bedroom and the stacks of paperwork in the dining room, and I wonder how this will all work out.

I’m at an intersection of time at which the past and the future are so appealing, the present seems completely inaccessible.

I watch the sun set over the green hump of land that I used to slide down every winter and roll down every summer, and I try to take the moment for what it is. I try not to think about the last time I sat atop this hill, or how this might be the last glimpse I ever get of it.

Instead, I let the cool summer breeze chill my legs, and I try, for the first time in a long time, to truly live in the present.