Reflections. . .

Life is full of seasons and changes.  Nothing stays the same.  People come and go from your life; they grow up and move on.  Physical, material things rot and fade away.  Everything in life will eventually be touched by the fingers of change; nothing and no one can escape.

The last few months have been a painful, scary and yet exciting time.  I've experienced so many changes and been thrown so many curveballs recently that at times I feel that if life doesn't slow down, I might suffocate.  In one day, my circumstances can change one, two or even three times.  But I guess that's what happens when you grow up.  You get to see and experience everything from the front lines, because mom and dad are no longer standing as a barrier between you and the "real world".

Here I am, sitting in my dorm room.  All grown up and on my own at a college a little less than three hours away from my hometown.  I've been here since August and now, for the first time in two months, I finally feel like I have a moment to breathe and just be.  As I sit and allow myself to simply exist, I am hit by the weight of all that has happened in the last few months.

I'm at college.  I don't think the reality of this fact has really hit me yet.  For as long as I can remember, college has been the distant dream.  Something I wanted, but doubted would happen.  I figured that by the time I had been out of high school for two years,

Almost A War Bride - Original Poem

I've been looking through my files and have been finding a lot of things that I wrote many years ago.  I decided to start playing around with them and then sharing them with the world at large to see what people think of them.  This is a poem I wrote when I was 14 or 15 and has not been changed at all from the original.

He wanted to marry before he left, but she was young.

Just 16.

 And the war wasn’t going to last. 

He begged and asked, but she remained steadfast. 

And so, resigned, he asked her to wait, 

 Wait for him to come home. 

To this she consented, so off he went, walking on the heels of fate. 

As he left, waving his hat, off to war

Her heart fell.

An unexplainable fear came upon her, she knew not what for.