Winter-Elizabeth

Winter is Approaching

A sigh of comfort escapes my lips as I pull on my baggy Holderness sweatpants, their cottony warmth instantly heating my legs. Skipping down the stairs, I try to decide what I’m going to write for my blog post tonight. I've done too many poems, too many short stories. My faucet of ideas, usually forming a raging river of inspiration, runs dry as I log on to my computer. I open Word and sit, thinking. I think for a while. My mind goes off on a spree, a wild adventure through nowhere, about everything I could write about. I think and think of all these ideas but they are too strong to put to words. Time ticks by and still I sit here, blanket wrapped around me, sipping a cup of tea, trying to think of something. Anything. Maybe a good time in my life? A fun time over the summer? My mind wanders around, pointlessly. It sets on my summer vacation, relaxing and carefree, full of camps, swimming, new friends. Smiling, I close my eyes and set my whole vacation in front of me. I reach another obstacle. There’s too much. I don’t know what to focus on, it was all too good. My thinking strays from its path, all these happy days of summer, over.

How is it that those days of swimming at the town beach or skipping rocks in the Pemi with my newly acquainted friends are over? Those days when I would splash my canoe mates while gliding through Squam Lake, clear and glassy, in the evening, laughing and singing songs are already two months away. That time I visited Cape Cod or the day we went to Whale’s Tale? Gone. I no longer have time to lounge on my couch, watching TV for hours or to call up my friends every other night, planning sleepovers and parties. How is it that we have already had weeks upon weeks of school and that the teachers no longer go easy on us, because we are 8^th graders? How is it that I’m a big kid, that I will never be in kindergarten or 2^nd, 5^th, or 7^th grade again? That there will never be a 1999 or 2001 or 2003 or 2005 or 2007 or 2010 ever again? How is it that they are already selling Christmas goods in stores? How is it that 2012 is almost over? How is it that I’m a teenager? A teenager! How is it that I’m growing up?

Shivering, my teeth chattering, I stop to wrap the blanket more tightly around me. I take a sip of tea and look up, realizing that all those thoughts are there. 201 words, I didn't realize I had been typing all that. I also didn't realize I was crying. I sit back, my eyes engulfed with tears, threatening to emerge at any given time. Thinking about my past, my future, I give in and softly weep. How is it that I’m growing up? 

**Sorry guys, I posted last night but when I went on today I realized it didn't show up so here it is!!