Fall

As the nights grow longer again, that creeping sense of dread returns. Another autumn, another year slipping away. Like the leaves on my lawn, it was real once, and now it is dead. I cannot change the past, nor can I bring back what is gone. And yet, much like the trees, I must go on living.

Beneath the gray clouds of dawn, I see the people around me differently. Their failures and shortcomings, their kindness and love. The things they have done, and the things they have left undone. This time around, I see them as people like me. I cannot change what they think. Perhaps I never could.

Soon, the winter chill will settle in, stirring that familiar ache in my heart. An undying longing for this loneliness to cease. But I cannot keep waiting for what may never come. Another winter will pass, as will another spring.

Looking around at all the misery in the world, my problems seem so small. So insignificant, so meaningless. Yet they weigh so heavily on me.

I want to know what it is to start living. It will not be everything I once wanted. But perhaps I can still have what I need: a purpose.

Love is beyond my control, a stochastic aberration. Purpose is mine to define. I have the privilege of choosing how to live my life.

If I live it.