Everything always seems to flow so quickly before me.
I feel like it was just yesterday I was a stumbling, mumbling, and awkward freshman.
It was just yesterday that I was lost
confused
scared
and lonely in a new place with new people and new feelings I had never witnessed before.
There is no distinct line
no significant bright flash
no abrupt change in events that separates all the past years from this one.
How did I get here?
Where did the time go?
Why did I not grip to those moments while they lasted?
And now I’m back.
Freshman and sophomore years are over.
Surreal summers have come and gone, flying past in an unreasonably quick wind.
It barely rustled my hair before it was gone, leaving still and stale air in its wake.
Now that there is no wind
no more cool breeze
the air is hot and suffocating.
It weighs down on me with a significant pressure
I am Atlas.
I am willed by others to be mature
respectable
in control of absolutely everything and anything I can be.
I am willed by myself to succeed
to be in control of what I can
to be happy instead of content.
I do not want to be responsible for everything else
if only to just live life.
I want to be responsible for myself
and experience life, not just mundanely live it.
I reach for the excitement that others only yearn for.
I want to explore the world
change lives
become a better person than anyone ever anticipated.
I want not to live up to others expectations
but to live up to and surpass my own.
I want to be free from others and myself.
I want to be happy,
I want to experience life,
I want to change lives.
I need to be me.