Keianna

Once I didn’t leave the house for over a week. The same walls. The same balcony. The same food for every meal: avocado toast. I dreaded the day that I’d wake up and there would be no more bread or avocados and no one to bring them to the front door for me.

It came sooner than expected.

My grandma decided to walk with me. The sun was starting to set and it wasn’t a long journey but the second we walked outside of the apartment building I knew something had to be wrong.

I remember thinking to myself that I don’t remember the outside world being this loud. Too loud. The panic outside of the building was turned into a buzz that I couldn’t decipher anymore. There was a man laying on the floor. He wasn’t moving and the sidewalk was stained red.

Life’s funny like that, huh? One day you walk out of your house for the first time in what feels like weeks and you’re suddenly in the middle of an emergency.

After offering help and being told that an ambulance was already on their way, my grandma pulled me away, across the street. We were still out of avocados.

I cried and insisted that I talk to my dad the whole way there. I hadn’t done that since elementary school. I did feel small but small in the sense that there’s a whole world out there and crazier things than a man falling and hurting his head happen all the time. My dad told me that I’d for sure experience something crazier in my years.

A couple days later we found out that the man was home and okay.

My own mortality has always been something that concerned me. I can remember the day that I realized I would die one day. I panicked and didn’t stop thinking about it for days. To this day it keeps me up sometimes. It’s something that I talk with my therapist about.

Three girls that went to my high school passed away in the last four years. I didn’t know any of them well but I’d talked to each of them at least once. After each funeral it felt like the city slowed down a little bit. People my age were reminded that we aren’t invincible.

I’m not sure what happens after we go or why we’re even here in the first place but I’m starting to think it’s not to go as fast as we can. Maybe we can slow down. See the sights and make people remember our smiles.

I’m grateful for the time I have and I’m trying to make the most of it so I don’t have much time to think about what’s next. I like it this way. ♦