Premature maturity or something vaguely resembling it makes me philosophize too much for too long.

Maybe I’m crediting myself unfairly. It’s probably simply the tendency that comes with being a writer that makes me mentally wax on so much that I resemble a person-shaped candle by the end of the tangent.

At any rate, the most beautiful fireworks display I’ve witnessed in my life, marking the end of my stay here and many milestones– 1st? 25th? 50th? nth? reunions– and paid for with love, explosives, and alumni donations soared overhead half a mile in the distance, neatly framed by trees from where I stood leaning against a lamppost. After going dutifully through a checklist of reactions in my brain (curse my malfunctioning camera and subsequent inability to capture instances of this beauty? check. ponder how graduates are indoctrinated into making a big deal about reunions before they’ve scarcely left their dorms for the last time? check. marvel that I inadvertently took an opportunity to witness it at the closing of my first year? check.) I ran into the reluctant conclusion that wide-eyed joy was not natural to me when I was by myself.

Forwards and backwards, long and (very) short, I’m a people person. And this is bothersome because at this age, the people factor is still fleeting.

From the people I knew and called friends in high school, already a small pool to begin with, I give a damn about perhaps four, bluntly put.

One of my greatest fears was, is, and remains that I will ultimately go through life and end up alone. It is irrational. It is unlikely. It is a bone-chilling, breath-catching thought that never fails to make me freeze for an instant, mentally or otherwise.

But standing there, without a friend nearby or anyone closer, I felt rather glum.

Irrational? Maybe, and as the evening went on, and as alcohol flowed and music blasted and I found more semi-sober friends to dance the night away with, my mood skyrocketed. But coming back to find another hope seemingly blown to dust, I think the best policy is to keep my mouth shut, chin raised in defiance, and any notions of being able to trust someone implicitly under firm lock and key.

(’course, hope springs eternal, and that spring shall be the death of me)

EDIT, 3:40 PM: Into my mind came a flash of shade and grass, and leaping into a tree with a swirl of skirts, saying: “Already I am not a child, and sooner I am expected to tamp down that of me which is young and lighthearted; will you not let me live how I am and if you so disdain it, let me go until my flame has been extinguished? Then you will find that tame, predictable figurine you so desire, but until then, I only have scant years to continue living in idealistic joy like this. Better with you than alone, but better alone than not at all, with you.”

10:51 PM: As I wandered campus after dinner with delicious organic artisan ice cream in hand, marveling at the sun’s persistence even as it drew close to 8 pm, I smelled bliss as I walked past a hedge.

I stopped. That was something I hadn’t smelled since I was at least ten. Pause, turn– bam. Honeysuckle.

That made my weekend.