The autumnal breeze had taken hold of everything. The leaves were leaving their parents for good. Everyone was holding their breaths as life in Indiana slowed down. This is the time of year I always look forward to. I was in a house with my family. Outside the house, you could see a massive oak tree. Looking at it, I didn’t know how large it was. My perception of the world was not large enough to constitute climbing it. Looking at this tree, I wondered what the sky looked like. I wondered what it would feel like to be on top of the world. I wanted to be free and climbing this tree would be the key to that door.

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I sat in the hollow of an old tree. It held me like a mother holds her child. Again I was listening to the wind. Its words were brisk and chilling to where it filled me with dread. I feared what the wind would think of me if it knew who I was. The hollow protected me from the terrors outside but I still felt threatened. It was in that hollow I learned to fear; where I created my shell.

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When I walked into the windowless room, my heart raced. The wind followed me everywhere I went. When the bell rang, I sat with people I had never known. The two of them kept talking about ideas I never thought of. Around us, the wind continued. While we sat there, we talked in style of places we’ve never been and people we’ve never met. As the three of us talked, the wind thinned. It felt like we were alone in the world. For once I had found a way to get the wind to cease. Time passed and we still sat together. With the time came resilience. We were different through life but we still found ways to put that aside. Together we controlled the wind around us and gave ourselves a reason to be together. Throughout the rest of the year, we worked together; inventing, learning, being.

Once we moved on, we lost contact. We each went our own ways. Once were lost, I heard the wind again. Under this wind, I lost myself and my family. I began pushing away from the people I cared about and wondered why I cared at all. Over time, I retracted back into my hollow trying to shield myself from the wind. This time my hollow was different, sculpted out of metal and solidarity. I caved from the fear. My body became bloated and full of a bile pathogen. I lost everything that made me special.

When I went home, I saw it again. The oak tree was sitting there just taunting me. I wanted to prove to the tree that it had no power over me. I started climbing its mildew and carbon covered bark. I was harder than I thought because of the grandeur of the tree. I never wanted to look down, I would never give up. I climbed up to the first brough and then the second. When I made it to the third, I finally looked down. When I did, the wind roared. The world seemed to lapse as I did.

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When I woke up, I was on the ground. I no longer heard any wind. My mom and my dad both were checking on me for anything broken; I was fine. I was actually more than fine, I no longer feared the wind. I started working out and burning off all of my fat. Over time, I no longer needed to find those two, I made more relationships with better people. Even now I still hear the wind, I just choose not to let it define me anymore.