When All The Leaves Fall

The Pecan Tree

As I looked out the bus window, all I saw was trees, grass, and the rotting dreams of every Texan who had tried to escape the cage of a hometown. Life in the only place you've ever known, is torture in the form a comfort and familiarity. It dresses itself in robes of splendor and welcoming and even though the door is wide open, you don't leave. I was not going to be like that. The depression of living in this town would kill me. Yet, would I be the girl who delivers her own death by drowning in her own unrealistic dreams? The dreams of being free turning to imprisonment. The dreams of being rich turn to bankruptcy. And the dreams of fame turn to being another prostitute on the street. I didn't want to leave the innocence of childhood. But the thrills and possibilities of adulthood called out to me more than any sheltered life as a child did. As the bus abruptly stopped at my street, I was transported back to reality. It was not enough to deeply think on my life, it was a requirement that I had to live it too. As I got off the bus and rounded the corner to my house, I stopped to look at The Pecan Tree. As long as I could remember, there had been an empty lot right across from my house. And in that lot stood a tall, old, fearless pecan tree. We had just got off winter break, but being Texas, it only ever got cold enough for the leaves to fall off after the Christmas spirit had left the air. As I watched the leaves fall peacefully off the tree, it added a sense of reassurance to my uneasy state of mind. I turned and crossed the street to get to my house. As I got closer and closer to the house I had called home for 17 years of my life, I felt more and more anxious to graduate. To get this year over with. Little did I know, this would be the most eventful year of my life.