A Clear Pool

I was lying on her bed, looking around her room... contemplating the things that once belonged to her, the things that would soon be in my charge... the things that were now almost insignificant. She had deliberately placed them around her room. There was some story behind each one, some memory. And, now sharing all these things with her, I remembered everything. It was unreal, the me lying on the bed and the me curled up inside almost completely separated from one another. My consciousness, to my surprise, was neither one. I was everything, lying on the bed, placing each thing around the room, collecting them, making them, sealing them away and eventually abandoning them... ...and I promised her in that moment, "I'll never forget you." She was supposed to be a part of me... that part that I never exposed to the world, the one that I was desperate to hide. I made her all of that. How did I expect her to feel? How did I expect her to act? I was so unsure... but I too...

On days like this, I can't help but look back on my life. I know I'm not very old by society's standards... and hopefully this stage in my life is just the beginning compared to my life-expectancy... but on days like this, I feel like I have come a very very long way through time. The cool air of the beginning of Autumn comes in waves through the open windows of Corey's room. I'm sitting here after meticulously connecting glass beads to a metal chain for my Jewelry class, and I began to write out thoughts for my characteristically complex first project. Corey is mowing the lawn outside, which should be annoying since the windows are open and the sound drowns out my music at times. However, I feel so at peace that all my surroundings have become inexplicably beautiful. I keep breathing slowly through my nose. The smell of Autumn is familiar, but also very crisp and new. I remember sitting on the hill outside the Snellville Ward building of the LDS church, when I...