I can't help but wonder about what makes the colors change on this brisk fall day. The lake is calm and still like glass. Sitting on a log beside the lake, I can smell the musty decay of the leaves and the woods around me. The taste of the cool wet air chills the back of my throat. I can see my reflection staring back at me in the lake and I hardly recognize the person on the surface of the water.

I used to be this happy girl who had nothing to worry about. I was this person who never had to stress about anything except maybe some homework every now and then. I was a girl who glowed with the light of the brightest fire possible. Ever since a few years ago, that fire has been extinguished. I'm a shell of my former self. I don't think this is the right type of day for me to be writing about my life. My life is kind of a mess at the moment, so if the weather was more storm-like, I would relate to this a lot more.

The weather today isn’t necessarily ideal, but it’s not the worse it’s been. It’s very damp and the air is thick with the smell of autumn. The clouds overhead are dark and seem very unforgiving. As I look up above me, I start to feel small raindrops falling on my face. Only one thought is going through my head at the moment. A storm is on the way.

During a storm, there is nothing but chaos. Nothing is quiet. The wind is raging through the trees, like the thoughts in my head swirling around my brain. The trees shake in the wind, and some of them break at the trunk and collapse. The trunk is the strongest part of the tree, like my brain is the strongest part of me.

My mind will never be still no matter how hard I try. The trees around me are dead silent with only a slight quiver in the wind. While I look at the leaves, I can’t help but wonder how my life would be if I could be like them, simply quiet and just enjoying the life they have before it abruptly ends during the winter months. I long for my life to be as simple as the leaves and trees surrounding me.

Like the trees.

 I wish my life could be still and in control like the trees surrounding me. Their leaves slowly falling one by one until they are completely dormant for the winter months, only to wake up in the spring full of life and bright colors once again.

There are simple things in life I wish I could enjoy, but I can't due to the fact that the thoughts in my head are a hurricane. They swirl around my brain and bounce off the walls of my skull, giving me a headache most days. I want to stand tall and strong with my thoughts supporting me like a trunk. I know everyone says I should stop thinking about anything and everything, but they don't understand. I'm in the middle of a storm unable to control them.

My mind isn't that simple.

The trees across the lake are bright and vibrant, like my mind. My mind is full of of activity and life, but the activity and life that it's filled with can be dark and unforgiving like the elements of nature. I have been searching for some form of direction in my life for what seems like forever. I find myself asking so many questions. Why am I here? What is my purpose? I don't think I'll ever know, but that's the greatest adventure.

Maybe that's my purpose. To live life's greatest adventure. To live as if today is my last. Today is the present, yesterday is over, and tomorrow is not promised.

As I watch the stillness of the lake and the bright colors of the leaves, I get up to start walking back to the bus with a smile on my face and a new kindling in my heart. I have finally been able to write what’s been in my head for years. Words cannot even begin to describe how much relief I feel. The words that have been in my head for so long are finally on paper.