Cover Your Tracks [HS][2014 VERSION]

49. Glory and Gore

"There's a hummin' in the restless summer air, and we're slipping off the course that we prepared . . ."

I find it funny how some things lose meaning over time. Something can mean something so much to you and then suddenly nothing at all, and vice versa. Over the course of your life, your perspective will change and your dreams will vanish only to reappear in new forms. If you don't believe me, think back to the earliest years of your life. When asked who or what you wanted to be when you grew up, what did you say?

Did you want to be an astronaut, rock star, superhero, or princess?

Fast forward a few years. By this time you've completed elementary school and are halfway through middle school. A few speakers visit your school, each giving information about career paths to consider for the future. At the end of the seminar, they pass around a questionnaire asking about your interests. You scan the information and shrivel your nose at the corporate jobs printed in bland gray ink.

Did you want to be famous?

Transition into high school. You're in the homestretch known as senior year. The past twelve years have been leading up to this moment, and you're supposed to be happy, but all you can think about is finishing a battle only to enter into a war. The speakers have visited more often, now. They pass out packets and pamphlets that you can't bother yourself to read because you can't bring yourself to understand how this is the end when it's only the beginning.

Did you want to live long enough to see yourself graduate?

You have this immense pressure placed on your shoulders. All of your life has led up to this moment and you're convinced that giving up now would mean that it was all for nothing. You have all of these people pushing you through it, some of them clapping you on the back while others breathe down your neck. All of these people ask you what you want to be and you think long and hard. You give them your transformed dream, but the truth is that you just want to be happy.

Before you know it, astronauts become scientists and engineers; superheroes become firefighters and policemen. Princesses trade in their crowns for a pair of heels and a pencil skirt; rock stars become musicians and singers resort to singing in the shower. You look around and see all of these people becoming all of these things and it looks so easy but you know that it's not.

You start to rethink and question everything that you've been told because suddenly, life isn't as picture-perfect and simple as people painted it out to be. You might get caught up in all of the colors, wondering what might have mixed to give you the dark blue you're so used to. You might try to paint over it and start anew, but deep down you know that blue will always be there and you will still be the same old you.

For years I have wandered, wondering what possibly my purpose in life might be. I have spent my time in this town not knowing what or who I want to be, only that I don't want to be here when it happens. For years I have told myself that I have my life all figured out, yet as the new chapter to my story is about to unfold, I have no idea how it's going to begin.

But this chapter is coming to an end, and I don't think I'm ready to turn the page.

Years I have waited for this moment and yet, I find myself wishing that it hadn't come so soon. Leaving this town has always been a dream of mine but I wanted to do it on my own terms. After possessing such little control of my life as an adolescent, I wanted to have every bit of it when venturing out into college and pursuing what would be the rest of my life. A life out of this cold, frozen town where time seems to stand still.

I watch as it passes through the hazed windows of the old yellow bus. A few branches stretch into the road and scrape along the glass as we pass, tap tap tapping until they return to their arboring positions once again. On the first day of my senior year, I had closed my eyes and imagined this rickety old bus being my golden ticket out of this town. Now, when I open them, a heavy knot makes itself at home in my chest.