Before You Know It

Life changes so terribly fast, you can't hardly keep up with it.

It slaps you in the face and you don't have enough time to slap it back, because by the time you're ready to, it's already up and left. So you sit in your room and you cry about it, because it hurts. Your skin still stings, even months after the assault. Everything closes in at once, and it takes a work of God to keep you from breaking down every time something unpleasant yet small happens to you. You see nothing worthwhile in yourself. You work and work and work for some kind of end that you don't understand or want. You're someone you don't want to be, but you can't say anything against it, because you know it's right. You see the people around you, and you wish you weren't like them, but you don't know who else to be. You don't want to be yourself anymore. You bury your nose in books and business. It doesn't matter if things are going to get better or not, because you can't see where you're going or why. There is no end to anything you're doing. You always keep going. Going going going, like in some car you found on the side of the road after being dumped out of the one that you were in before and stamping on the gas. The roar feels right for a while, and then you look around and you see that it isn't. And then you stop that car and you go back to work. You felt something inside yourself for a while, but it hurt so you tried to stop it. Your efforts worked. Life doesn't suck. Well, yes it does, but not as much.

So there's relief for a while. You're losing weight from the stress. You wake up, you go to school, you go home, you work. It's not fun, but it's better than it was. Your clothes are too big and it looks ridiculous. Sure, you feel a little better, because you don't feel fat and ugly anymore, but now you feel too small and poorly clothed.

Then you notice just how lucky you are. You look up and the sky and it's all good. You look at the other country kid that captures stars with his hair and voice and hands without even trying, and then you look at yourself, and you see that you're doing it too. You smile. It's a nice feeling. You're just like him, now. Your life is simple. Those city people can join you if they want, but for now, you do your work and you laugh and you play and you go on. When life strikes, you feel the pain just as badly, but it isn't as bad. I don't know how to describe it. It's like you can deal with it. You can listen to the music that you used to hate because of one person. Now the music is as sweet as it was when you first heard it in that car that went its own speed.

And now you're a Country Kid too. You deal with pain and failure and the awful reflection in the mirror for months and months, and before you know it, you're just like him. Just like him. Now... chill. Look at stars. Listen to music. All that nonsense is over.