Out of the Woods

Although most people don't, I remember the day I grew up. I remember the day when the air was no longer fresher than a cold bottle of water and the sky was no longer as blue as a brand new colored pencil right out of the box in a set of school supplies you bought the week before. The concrete roads were broken underneath my tattered hand me down sneakers and the sounds around me were of the hustle and bustle of moms and dads getting to and from work to put food on the table. The life I once knew was gone at an instance and I realized that we're in a simulation of repetitiveness until the day our physical body finally decides to give out. Will I ever be the same again and most importantly will I be okay?

I was younger than most would expect when I decided to teach myself to read at the age of four and could hold a conversation with an adult which turned out to be more interesting than watching these little lines on the television box moving they call cartoons. Even then, I still went outside and played with these toys that were intended for entertainment for those of us that were of younger years. Surprisingly, they weren't too bad. I also made what they call "friends," in the neighborhood in an attempt to form social bonds, which I read were important to be successful in a career one day. Most of the chosen activities of said friends were nothing short of boring, but I figured it was worth the trouble seeing as I planned on creating a fortune one day. The best days were when I was alone. I had a sketch pad in my hand to portray the beauty I saw in nature and my little black book I wrote in to log my daily experiences and thoughts. My mother would forget to remind me to tell her I was going out and on most days didn’t even realize I was out, which worked out in my favor most of the time.

I’d go out in the woods by my house alone and I think this is where my love of life began. I remember looking up to the sky and it was so big and empty and there was so much room to fill my imagination. The sticks and dirt on the ground had a repugnant smell and the water flowing down the creek popped with every object it hit on the way down. It was the best feeling in the world being alive. At this time in my life, all of my senses were so heightened. All the smells were loud, and the noises were bright, every object I touched was so strong, every song was beautiful, and nothing could get better than this. I always knew that I was a little different, but I never thought that it would affect me much in a world of people who didn’t understand, but I had my little black book and I could say anything I wanted to there.

Everyday was an adventure, what I’d do, where I’d go, what I’d hear, and what I’d see. Everything in life was so perfect and as far as I knew that was life. One day I was walking home from my adventure in the woods and I was attacked by a group of kids who told me I talked funny and said that I would never be normal like the rest of them. Outside of the physical pain afflicted on my body, I didn’t understand what they meant. How am I different from the rest of them? I never felt I was much different from anybody else.

In school I never really had any real friends which was okay with me most of the time. I didn’t have a group that I socialized with, I was just there, I existed.

At home life wasn’t anything too special. I went home, ate meals, hung out in my room. I stopped seeing the colors. The blue sky turned a little more gray. The sticks and dirt below my feet hurt and the water that once flowed so smoothly was cold and wet, my surroundings became painful. I walked home looking at the woods and I looked around the empty street, and I looked at my house, and I looked at the gray sky, and I looked at the broken concrete underneath my tattered second hand shoes. A single teardrop fell from my eye, but I quickly wiped it away and moved on.

One morning, my mother woke me up to take me to school and we got ready, put ourselves together, grabbed our belongings, and left the house. We went to the public bus stop and I felt chills from the wind. I heard the rumbles of the buses starting up and it sounded like lions roaring and the smell of burnt tar and dirt and the gas fumes from the buses. I looked up at the gray sky which no longer carried any blue hue, and the concrete below my tattered hand me down shoes were hard and over used. I looked up at the parents holding their children’s hands and I I saw the change in their hands to use to get on the bus and I stopped and looked around at everybody. Not one person was smiling. They were just moving through the simulation our life has destined for us. So I smiled and moved on.

I no longer had the blue sky, or the beauty of the woods, or the sounds that sang to me, but I had my little black book. And in that book I can remember the time before I grew up. I think I will be okay.