I don’t know what life would be like without music. Then again, I don’t know what my memories would be like without the songs or the anthems of my youth.

I just don’t know.

I used to love my early morning drives. I still do.
I love driving off when the sun comes up and the music from the radio in my car is not too loud, but loud enough to let my mind slip into different rhythms.

The sun is coming up behind me and I am off and gone, just driving in my own mindless way, carefree and disconnected, if that makes any sense.

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I think youth shows us something new and something different. Maybe I was afraid then too. Or maybe I was less afraid than I am now.
Maybe experience tricks us into believing that one thing is the same as all things.
But what about the dreams?
What happened to the way things used to be?
Was everything we had not good enough?

I understand that all things change. I understand that nothing stays the same and anything that does can become ordinary, at best.
Such is life after the newness wears off.

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Here I go again, streaming my conscious self, and speaking to you in the form of my written confession. I am here to reveal myself.
Or perhaps I am only thinking once more, out loud, and with no limits.
I have nothing left to hide.
Anyway, it’s time.
There is no one else to stop me, keep me still, or prevent me from going forward.
I am free now and free in ways that I never considered.
But either way, I am free nonetheless.

I am here.
Always here. Just know this.
Then again, where else would I be?
Who else would I be if I was not me or coming back to this same place every day?
If I were not me and you were not you, I wonder where I would be?
Or would I be anywhere, if not here anyway?

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And so?
Perhaps this morning is a good time to shut off my surface and conscious thinking.

Yes. I think now is a good time to turn off the tough switch and, for now, I will take myself to the depths of streaming consciousness.
No thinking. Just let my words go.

Okay?

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Do you know what I miss?

I really miss the freedom to dream. I miss the richness of being young and driving off without deciding on a direction. All I needed was a tank of gas and “goodbye!”
I admit that I miss the wild times and the nights that ran until sunrise.

I miss the times when I was alive and living my life, out loud, and in the scenes of New York City.
I miss the afterhours moments when the sun came up after my time in the crowds. I remember my thoughts as I drove home.
Rather than get home and in bed, I continued to drive south on the Meadowbrook to the Loop Parkway. I made my way, as fast as I could, so that I could see the rest of the sunrise from the beach at Point Lookout.

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I wonder if we knew that someday, we would look back and say “these were the best days of my life.”
I wonder if we ever thought that we would look back at some of the hardest times and regard them as easy or worthwhile.

I think of it this way:
My worst day with you is still better than my best day without you.
This is true. However, I believe it is best for me to take this one step more.
And so, I will.

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This is not to say that my admiration for things has changed. Nor is this to say that I have changed so much that my appreciation for the people from “back in the days,” are any different from when I was young.

I still have love in my heart.
I know I do.
In fairness, I believe that love is the best and most heroic emotion that we have.
Scary. Amazing.
Highs and low, lows.
But nothing is better than the feel of love or love in the heart.
This is the real fountain of youth.

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I went back to that idea about how it was as kids. I remember when boyfriends and girlfriends used to write their names on desks and sign this off with the saying 4-EVA. 
I never really had a girlfriend when I was a kid,
at least not longer than a few days or maybe a few weeks at best.

I never carved my initials or left the insignia “4-EVA”.
4-EVA meant “forever!”
I suppose this was a way to say, “Together forever” but such is youth. And such are the mind-blowing concepts of young lust or teenage love. And such is the concept of words like “always” and “forever.”
I think about the word “never” and how I swore that I would never grow old.
But such is life, and such are the details, and such are the truths of our life.
This is the way.
We live, and we learn.
We age and then we wilt.

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I used to scribble words in little notebooks. . .

I never thought much about writing, as in to be a writer or anything like that. I never thought that I would look to do this in an exposed setting. I never thought about telling anyone that I write because, out of fear, I never believed that I could write something meaningful enough to be valid.

I admit there was something beautiful about my quiet anonymity. There was something nice about having a secret escape that no one knew about.
Only a few knew.
No one could judge me here.

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There are different places where I wish I could have left a time capsule or something behind.
I wish there was a way to let people open this up, like a box from the past or a message from the people who used to be here.

I left scratches and carvings of my initials in trees and park benches.
But who knows if they still stand or exist?

I want to do something like this and one day, I want to find a way to leave a time capsule. Hopefully, someone will open this box and see how we lived or how we thought.

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