Excerpt

I lived there when I turned 21 for a year, and as much as I hated being away from my friends and family, the seclusion was exactly what i needed for my mental health. I learned a lot about myself in the absence of everyone near and dear to my heart. I learned to love the sound of winds, the sight of the leaves rustling all over the nearly ice cold concrete, and most of all the fresh crisp air that just filled my lungs with the comfortable sting of home. For being in a completely new territory, and being faced with the ultimate culture shock of a small town coming from being surrounded by city my whole life, I really grew to see this foreign place as my home. I for once in my life was able to sit out on my front porch, completely free in every way sipping my coffee to look up and see every star in the sky. There was no light pollution to ruin the beauty the heavens give us in the absence of materialistic posessions.
As I am here back in the enticing Southern California city life, the wind is the only thing I have here to remind me of that simple time in my life when I uprooted everything to live alone in the country. I don’t have the blessing of being able to sit out on my porch to drink my coffee, and look up to see the millions of shiny stars glaring down at me. All I have now are endless series of street lights, and the lights of the city to disguise the beauty of our nature. Oh how i miss the simplicity of that small town life.
I only made one friend the whole time I was there, and we never hung out once. We were school buddies, but I grew very fond of the girl. She was a small girl, who grew up in this small town with big town dreams. She wasn’t my best friend, but she was the closest thing I had to a close friend all alone up there. Hell, she probably doesn’t even know I conisder her a friend in my book. To her, we are probably strangers that met in school and became sociable towards each other for that reason alone. I know if the tables were turned that’s what I would feel.
She was a quirky, petite girl with a great infectious smile. Don’t get my flattery wrong for affection, I just admired her persona. She was a genuinely warm hearted person with a genuine personality. We would talk in class and vent to each other about the little problems in our lives, and other times we would sit and laugh at all the same quirkiness in everyones personalities including our own. She was one of those girls I wish I had known my whole life. Sadly, after my move back to the city we lost most contact with each other. She is still one of those people that I would help at any time if she needed it.
I remember my first day of school in this estranged town I was so nervous. The campus building in my town was roughly the size of a bank, with 6 classrooms, a computer lab, and a small room as our library. All of it was so alien to me, I thought I’d never adjust. I walked into my statistics class so unsure of everything I would be facing all alone this year in what I often think back as my year of solitude. I must have stuck out like a redhead in the middle of Compton in the middle of the night. The only white person in any of my classes, and I am not even full white. But boy did I stand out from the rest.
With the stagnant flavor of coffee on my breath I am forced to remember all my 2 AM runs to the local 7 eleven for my fix of more coffee for my christmas mug I never seemed to retire. I would on many of my sleepless nights fill my coffee mug, and pick up an old book, or put on for the hundedth time Breakfast at Tiffanys. I would sit with my puppy watching her while she slept like a baby through all my constant movement throughout the house through the late hours of the night. Often so restless at night she would either come curl up at my feet or she would demand a full cuddle from me, seeming to know that if I cuddled with her warm little fur ball body I would soon succumb to the temptation of my heavy eyelids.