Things echo loudly in this home. Low voices and high voices scatter between the ceiling and the roof, making it seem as though a great crowd were present. I can still single a few of the voices out, despite the noises.
My thoughts echo around in my head similarly in this home. For the first time in years, I think of a future, a possible deviance from the subsequent unchanging lifestyle that I have had for the past seven years. Yes I have new jobs, new friends, new relationships, old relationships, new classes, new priorities; but when was the last time I could honestly say that I knew what it would be like to live alone?
This is what my mom fears most, being alone. This is what caused her to move every few months in those short two years I didn't live in the country. This, what I am enjoying so much.
Sometimes things change. Often, things stay the same. I don't want to be an echo, repeating what's been done and said. I don't want to live up to someone's ideal of perfection, or tolerance. I don't desire more than happiness.
"If you had three wishes Chris, what would you wish for?"
I didn't hesitate.
End hunger and the suffering caused by it.
Allow doctors to find a cure for AIDS.
Encounter true happiness and live it my best abilities.
"for all eternity?" someone chimes in.
Yes, an everlasting happiness.
The voices still echo around these empty rooms with no furniture. Thoughts and music fill the void when they subside. Change is a slow approach to a sudden realization that things don't need to remain as they are; the status quo is that time continues; change is letting go.
An everlasting fact?
I don't know... I haven't lived forever yet.
