Speech

Walking down the foot worn trail, I hear the birds in the trees, I feel the warmth of the sun on my shoulders, I marvel at the green glow of light surrounding me. The forest is alive. Everywhere I look I see a thriving ecosystem. Crickets are chirping, squirrels are gathering, rabbits are running. In the distance, I hear a wood pecker searching for food. I glimpse a deer loping through the trees. As I walk farther on, I hear the trickle of water flowing, flowing over the algae covered, smooth polished river rocks.
Out from beneath the dense forest, the shadowed ground and leaf-littered floor, the sun's intense rays force my eyes closed until I adjust to the brightness of the mid-summer's day. The trickle of the water calls my name. It invites me to enjoy the relief it brings from the scorching heat. I take off my shoes and socks, roll up my well-worn, experienced, ragged Levi's, and step in. I jump, startled by the freezing temperature of the water. I walk farther in, letting the water rise to my knees, and follow the flow of the river, barefoot, and explore what I have yet to discover.
Little did I know those days would end. Childhood's days are numbered, and mine was quickly coming to a close.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Mom's forest green sedan parked in the rocky drive way, the trunk and backseat full of backpacks and suitcases, filled with Barbie dolls, stuffed animals, and clothes; I think about how unaffected nature is by the death of my childhood, the ending of a chapter. The sun still rises, the birds still sing, the flowers still open in the morning. There is no dark cloud looming to the south, nothing to show the death of a life. I'm almost surprised by the less than ominous signs nature holds. I was expecting thunder and lightning, sleet and hail, a blizzard in the middle of July, anything out of the ordinary, but no such sign came my way. The car starts, and we head towards the road, where I rode my bike, walked with my friends, waited for the bus, and now I'm leaving it all behind. I close my eyes, I don't want to see my life flash before me, every scene clear as if I'm experiencing it all over again. I have control of that, the choice to remember, at least there is something I can stop. But I can't take the wheel from my mother, I can't turn around, the control I have ends with my memories.
I've been told all my life it takes a husband, a car, a house, a family, an education, and a career to make me happy. I feel everyone else has been told the same thing, because I look around at my friends, and it seem that we're all counting the days, until graduation, until we start our careers, until we marry, until we own a house, always waiting but never happy.
Revisiting that foot worn trail, I've come to realize being a child wasn't what made me happy, meandering didn't make me happy, it was the water calling my name, it was the sense of belonging, it was feeling that the world needed me as much as I needed it.
We all need to find that sense of belonging, where counting time isn't as important as simply existing, where we can walk farther in, let the water rise to our knees, and follow the flow of the river to explore what we have yet to discover.