Reasons Like Seasons

Ah, graduation: the culmination of years of work, learning, and personal growth all wrapped up in a funny hat with a tassel. Oh, to be young again. When I graduated from high school in the summer of 2000, I had high hopes and great plans. I was about to leave town for a three week road-trip along the Pacific Coast, and upon my return I was going to UCLA as a member of the university's honor's program. I was the cream of the cream. I was the top of the top. But what is down on paper and what is locked in one's heart seldom match, and I was as (or possibly more) anxious, scared, and unprepared as the rest when I walked down that long aisle made of eight hundred white folding chairs on the football field. As I watched my peers pass by, I dreamed dreams for them: doctor, lawyer, musician, architect. Some of these dreams came true, some did not. But they were my dreams, so they didn’t matter. The test that counts is if people dream their own dreams and make those dreams ...

Sometimes, when I see you, I want to hold you forever in my arms; To give love, and to be loved, are the only ideas my mind can comprehend. But other times when I see you, I am almost afraid to touch, afraid that the spark that follows may engulf me in flames. It is then that I just watch, and explore your world as you exhale, the smoke streaming from your lungs the only sign of the fire that burns inside.