Prologue

I feel like my life has played out as if it were a book. Two chapters have been fully written sent to the editor but no revisions can be made. The next chapter is still unknown, but there is a lot of hope for what it could hold. I’ve been dreading this, but I knew it was coming and as things often do, it gets here before you know it.
Chapter One: High School and everything preceding it has all been wrapped up in one big ball of memory. Good times, bad times, sad times, and mostly awkward times. I think everyone’s high school years are roughly the same when it comes down to it. Remove the names and the people, places, and experiences are all the same at heart. We laugh and we cry and we think of things in exaggerations. If I don’t go to Senior Ball with this guy my life will be over! If he doesn’t ask me out I will die! I can’t believe my hair is so bad on picture day; I will never live this down! And what did any of it matter? No employer has ever asked me about how perfect my hair was on picture day, and my dates never asked who I went to Senior Ball with. The memories are fuzzy and distant for those who experienced them. For me, I wonder if they even happened or if I only imagined they did. Either way, it doesn’t really matter.
Chapter Two: This encompasses everything from graduation to last month. My first failed attempt at junior college, my first ‘real’ job at Panera, and my first heartbreak were all milestones that make this chapter so important. The first year of this era was similar to my Chapter One and serves as a transition period. I experienced my first love in a way- I had loved a person before but this was a different kind and it was the first person I believed loved me back… There was a month that closed out that year that was wrapped up in a best friend’s betrayal and losing other friends along the way- losing dead weight I suppose. It also was reminiscent of chapter one in that I thought I would never trust anyone again and that I would be sad and lonely for life. But life did go on and good things happened. The next three years were thus far the most interesting, exciting, and intoxicating I’ve had. And for that reason it’s hard to let this chapter end and move onto the next. That’s why I’m writing this now and not a month ago when the chapter actually ended…I’m hesitant to let it go.
I was cleaning up my room today and in an old cardboard box that has never been unpacked since I first left for Colorado and returned. In that box was an old paper bag filled with notes, papers, and memories I took with me on my last day as a temp., my last day before I left for Colorado. Those days came back in a flood of memories- getting in trouble for talking too much, writing each other cute little notes, shamelessly flirting with one of the photo guys, and promising to always keep in touch. Those days were amazing. I was reckless and young and doing exactly what a teenaged college dropout should be doing. But then an opportunity that I had passed on before came around again and I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice, so I left. It was one of the hardest decisions I had to make and it may seem simple on the surface, but it’s so hard for me to listen to my head and not my heart. But both pointed me eastward.
Then I returned and everything changed. It’s hard to move out and then move back in your old house again. It stops feeling like home in a way. Anyways, things kept moving forward and I found myself back at the sheriff’s dept and back in the company of a certain photo guy. And that’s when life really started moving in fast forward. Time stood still and went by so fast at the same time and the next thing I knew I had two weeks left at work. Mentally, that is when this chapter ends.
Chapter Three: The past month has been difficult emotionally. The job I had isn’t in itself what is so hard to let go of- it’s everything that being in that place has given me and I feel now, as if I never gave it its due. I feel as if I owe it something or should pay tribute somehow. That job gave me friends and made me realize which friends to grow on without. It gave me endless memories and the beginning of a life with someone. It’s hard to let that job go. It’s hard to let that chapter end. But now a new one really begins and the transition period is nearly over. I have a new job (which is my old job), and it will provide me with new things- like the money for rent for an apartment. It will give me something new to talk about, or write about, and it too will come with both new and familiar experiences.

I’m excited to see what else this chapter has in store for me. With Eppie’s tomorrow and Rocky Votolato around the corner it’s already beginning to look like the start of a very interesting era.