now at last

i stood outside the post office tonight as the sun was going down. it had fallen behind the buildings on the west side of the quad but you could still catch a good spot of reflection off the chapel. a beautiful february night. i remembered feeling the same way ten years ago, riding in the car with my mother down lake wheeler road a couple days before my tenth birthday. in fact, that could be almost exactly half my life ago. i didn't want to turn ten. double digits felt old and even though nothing would really change between the minutes before and after that certain time of day, it felt like a solidly new phase of life that i just didn't feel like starting yet. and i'm standing outside, watching the brightness fade off the whitewash with the same old reservations. i haven't even had time to give it any thought, what with all the work i have. tomorrow will be spent working, studying, no different than any other day of the past couple weeks. i'm not really ready to not be a teenager anymore. it feels like they were supposed to be the best years of my life...

dinner was a little sad. i'm not sure why, i just didn't feel like talking. especially when everyone started joking and reminiscing about the first mountain trip. everything i don't remember. i can't quite enjoy that yet... or maybe only in the right frame of mind. regardless, i really just felt like leaving and spending the evening alone. walking back was nicer, after everyone had split. the last hundred steps to huff. there was no sun anymore, just a lovely gradient of color growing from the ground. in between davis and taylor you could almost see a horizon. red under orange under yellow under a dirty white followed by green and capped by the most magnificent blue i may have ever seen. so deep and clear, backlighting the chapel spire. that was god.

i'd really rather it all be over, though. i can't but think of the past right now. a year ago tonight was the first time i spent time with this one kid. actually, that will be in another six hours or so, and a couple hundred yards to the southwest. if i had known then what the next couple months held, i might not have gone to the trouble. maybe i would have.

i've only got so much time. it feels like forever ago that i was a nine-year-old wanting to stay that way. in ten years, i'll be feeling the same way, but probably worse. best case scenario, though... let's say i'm married (but it still feels like we're dating). we are only considering having a kid. living in some nice big apartment in a fun city with a hospital for me to work in. maybe she's an artist and has a studio in one room. i could do this forever, though, so i won't waste time. in ten years, things could be pretty damn wonderful. hope i don't screw it up.

i feel like the wake forest basketball team. hah. i think we will get better with age, experience. there's a tunnel, but with every tunnel, a light. i can almost see it now.