Following the drops

Music in my ears, the lyrics of my favorite song now have a new meaning, more intense. While the beat grows, the waves get bigger and turn another shade of blue. A strong blue, dark, that wants to be noticed; just like the rest of this huge city. The lake without end is telling me to get ready for this new stage of my life; to start to explore bit by bit the smell of the water, the windows of the buildings that reach up to the sky, where I have to go to look at the unknown.

I dig my feet in the sand, as if it would save from what is about to come, although my mind assures me that it's going to be good. Because every end opens a new beginning, and I begin here, looking at the horizon. With this new year I'm not afraid to run under the rain that falls walking back home, a rain of opportunities, new happiness, challenges, people... This wind hits me in the face, a wind that doesn't have limit, that runs fast trying to stop me, but I keep going and I will go on with a smile on my face jumping between the puddles. Everyday of my seventeen will be unique.

Infinite

They say when you're sixteen, you have endless freedom, you fall in love like you never fell before while you bleed, you've got the world at your feet and you're flying. I don't know if that's true for everyone, but it was for me.

When you're too young to know what life is about but too old to question all that surrounds you, you've reached the point in your life when you know who you want to shape yourself into. You've developed into the greatest version of yourself and decided which road you want to take. During that road you will fall, only to find you can get back up. There are flowers on the side of the trail, each one with its unique color and scent. Friends are flowers in the garden of life and each one gives you something completely different.

Your heart expands and you can't breathe anything but love. Love for your parents, who have given you the light to see the darkness down the road and have held your broken pieces to then fix them up. Love for your best friend, that one person who knows you inside out and still loves you, that person who laughs when no one else will and who wipes your tears away, your other half. Love for the music that pumps in your veins to make you feel alive, that beat that keeps you running forward. Love for those inked words in your favorite book, that magic that helped you see different points of view. And love for that boy with brown eyes and sincere smile. The first love who you will always remember as the only one who made you feel big when you thought of yourself as small. He, who held you in his arms and made you believe in true love.

Now, one day before this revealing year ends, I look back on every moment during these 365 and know that I have lived the best year of my life. For now. A new adventure is about to start.

Station

Everything begins with a light summer breeze. An air that puts my hair on end and butterflies in my stomach. This air wraps me in memories intertwined with smiles that had your name, looks that left me without breath, simple words said between light touches.

When I feel that the breeze has wrapped me entirely, I open my eyes and I see places where memory takes me. I see an image of that bridge where time stopped, a dialogue of that movie we saw together, a reflection of the light that slipped through the streets of Venice that time we got lost leaving the world behind, a flower that I put in my hair on that walk we took at the beginning of spring.

All of the sudden, without previous warning, it starts to rain. The clouds come filled with those moments I wanted to forget, with that sad sensation of loss. The drops fall at the same time the tears flow down my face. The breeze has been replaced by a fierce wind that wraps me in cold. I put my jacket on, but the only thing that's going to stop the storm is your arms hugging me and promising that this isn't over. And I wish to see the stars, those starts we asked to be us forever.

The thunder of destiny roars reminding that he's the one who makes decisions and that rains falls for reasons; to let new flowers go and everything follow its path.

Just when I hear the wheels of the train getting close, I see that far away, in the mountain, the clouds open and the sun comes in between them. And I smile because I know that I'll always have that ray of sun. Every time I see that little piece of sun, I'll remember every "I love you" whispered at my ear, every nonsense that made me laugh, every word said with trust and, above all, that I'll see it again.

Under water

The weight in my heart's starting to get heavier, the suffocating feeling I have in my stomach is growing, and so is my fear. Fear, what a strange and particular word, it can drown you in so many different ways. This time it's drowning me in goodbyes. Goodbye to my four walls, these walls have seen me cry my lungs out, go crazy due to the smallest thing, sing lyrics that I know better than the palm of my hand; they have held pictures that show the most sincere and humble smiles, posters of stories I wish I could escape to... They are my personal box.

Still, there are worse goodbyes when you're surrounded by people who let you be and encourage you to be the best version of yourself. Those are the people worth writing about; they will be in my own safe box forever, even if they're only a memory, a letter or a glimpse of a smile. They have made me strong and shown me that weakness can be overcome.

This fear, the fear of having to let something go, will always be an open wound, something inevitable. There are always cities to leave, stories to be finished having to move on to the next chapter and planes to catch. This time I'm flying with no return, I'm leaving with an unknown future and a ticket that only goes one way.