maybe i should go home. maybe i should go back to florida state or tampa & go back to living the perfect like i was living. on the other side of all the west point, was the girl i loved. i found that if you love life, life will love you back, & i LOVED life there. i believe that if you love something set it free & i had to set free all the versions of myself that was comfortable & chase the dreams i believed were important at 19.
maybe this all of this "west point experience" was dream , maybe we’re all dreaming. at night, moments before i go to sleep, i put my headphones on & i play the songs i used to play when i'd drive down the streets of tallahassee on my way to class. in those moments, i close my eyes & i hone into the memories of what used to be. i imagine the mornings i used to wake up with the sun beaming through my windows & kenni fastly asleep at the foot of my bed. in between songs, i remember the days i'd hear my roommates laughing in the living room, or the music that leaked out of emma’s room because she always loved music & it was incredibly obvious. it helps me to remember all the good parts of life before west point, all the reasons why i got out of bed—it helps me remember what waits on the other end of graduating from west point.
on the other side of west point, my friends wait for me. they wait for me to rejoin them in the real world & fulfill the pieces of each other that are missing. when i walk to my barracks room, for a moment, i almost believe i can start again. i could leave west point, and reunite myself with the people & life i knew to have been true. on bad days, i wonder if things will get better here & while i can’t promise myself that it will, i can promise that there will come the day where my old friends come to my home, there will be new music to cry my eyes to, new recipes to try & all kinds of heart shaped trinkets that just wait for me.
sometimes i want to replace these gray new york skies with my sunny blue florida skies. i want to go to my mom's house & sleep in the bed i grew up in & see my friends that still call me by my first name. i want to wake up in the mornings to texts about plans for the day instead of formations times, & i want to know more about people rather than the 5Ws of whatever mindless tasks we have to go do. i miss everything about florida: the terrible drivers, the unpredictable rain, the intolerable humidity, & the lack of seasons. but, everyday, i close my barracks room window that prevents the cold air from rushing in, i make coffee, & i pretend im in love with the idea of being alive in a green uniform surrounded by kids that don’t know the first thing of loyalty. but, at the end of the day, i call my friends from home & it reminds me why the lack of loyalty from kids i don’t know is worth it, why the cold air rushing through my windows is worth it, & why living in a green suit apart from them is worth it. it’s worth it because they spend their days, spend their own personal time, believing in me & my dreams.
i realized today that i want a life. i realized i want an apartment i can decorate & make my own, & i want a dog that greets me every time i walk through the door. sunsets & sunrises give me hope, i love riding with the windows down, sleeping with the windows open, & i love sneaking away from work to giggle with my friends in the corner. i realized i want a life & it made me cry to understand this. when the sky is a certain color, a color that imitates florida blue skies, & im outside, my body begins to ache—pulling at all my natural instinct that makes me just wanna go back home.
but then it passes, as all things do. the urges to go back to the bed, with kenni at the foot of it, goes away, my desperate desire to go drive to lipona to see ascher or to stadium center to see cousin kevin passes. the imitation of florida blue skies turn into they really are, which are new york blue sky. i can’t abandon the person i used to be, so i carry her. i carry the love she was given by those who saw her for who she was. i carry the girl that believed everything she should do should be for the 17 year old version of herself. & i carry the pride she still has from coming from tallahassee.
tomorrow will be better, & if it’s not, just keep saying “tomorrow will be better,” until it is. i hope you remember there are good memories you haven’t made yet. i hope you sleep better tonight & remember that everything will be alright. I AM going to laugh until my stomach hurts in ascher’s truck again, i am going to find another hole in the wall restaurant with ethan again, i am going to be in awe of another florida sunset again, & i will watch my favorite show with my best friend kathryn while we eat the sweet treats we’ve been saving aside for each other again. one day, ill randomly find money in my coat pocket that will make my day, discover a new band that i’ll obsess over that reminds me a little of drives home from the beach, & i will find my way back to who i know i always have been. this will all come to an end one day, so grip hands & hold on tight.
with all my love,
♡steff
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