The setting

The setting sun shimmers. Golden, tangerine leaves paint a picture on swinging branches as well as the across the ground. The warm wind blows fiercly spreading the leaves across the ground and through the air. Night time comes quickly, but sitting outside reading a book as the sun sets or simply staring out and watching the leaves move in various directions, I notice maybe Carbondale is not all that bad.

When I leave, I know I shall miss this place for everything that I remember. I will be quick to forget all the bad. We are only held back by the memories we decide to keep about a certain place. Even though I know Carbondale has held me back, it has made me stronger, and in the long run I will embrace the experiences I had here.

I found a part of my journal I had while in high school. I could not have recalled the horrible times I spent pining about Colorado, or my life after high school. I had many high hopes. I know these high hopes went again on hiatus as I left school in Colorado to pursue a more fiscally responsible education. Yet, with all these memories refreshed, I still remember much more clearly of the times I spent bailing hay, riding my horse, climbing at the Silo, hanging out at the mall, or various trips with friends or the soccer team. I still remember all that. I don't forget that bad stuff, but it does not suit me to always think about it.

As I sit here writing, the sun has begun to dissipate. The leaves are losing their luster and the sky begins to shrink back and fall into darkness. The air seems to become cooler, if not at first it eventually will. The wind may pick up or it might die down, but all the beauty held there in a few moments will surely be remembered as I walk anywhere tonight. Do I often forget all this as the sun goes down about all the beauty that existed in the presence of the sun. Just because I cannot see the beauty does not mean it is still not there to be celebrated.

So in all of this I have started to lose and regain the parts most important to me. I feel I have left it too much to the people that surround me constantly and not enough to myself. I have been bent on how people perceive me for quite some time, even though it was not a big part of my life growing up. I have changed in school and sometimes, as in Carbondale, I have forgotten I have returned to that part of the country which I left so long ago as a choice.

I cannot think of it too highly, yet I can rejoice in the beauty I find here. I also must remember from whence I came and to what point I will eventually end up. So many times our paths are blocked by the setting of the sun. It does not mean that I will not go down that path, in the dark, and find myself closer when the sun rises again. I know I will not stop along my path and when I find myself again on my path, I will be that much closer.