20 years later
It all began like a flip of a switch. One day, the light went off. I still don’t know what really broke the camels back, but it only took a granule of sand for the hourglass to run down. My life went from light to dark and it took a war to simply flip the switch back; however, the room had been rearranged during the blackout. Nothing was the same except the damn lightbulb.
There’s this dark forest that I didn’t realize I was in. I didn’t know there was anything else. I’ve been in it my whole life. But I always felt something was off, there was always this feeling of needing to escape, but I didn’t know from what or why, and it always pushed me to wander, and the more I wandered, the more I started to see tiny little bits of light. And every time I’d catch a glimpse, it tempted me deeper into the woods. I started to get bigger glimpses of light…just enough to tempt me to keep searching…feeding my curiosity and hope for something more. And one day the light got really bright, it lit up the whole entire forest, and I realized just how dark the forest really was. When the lights came on, it was horrifying to see what I had been surrounded by…this forest was terrifying. It was almost better with the lights completely off! But only if I chose to stay inside the dark forest. When the lights came on, though, I realized there was a way to navigate around all the beasts, traps, and terror. With the lights on, I saw there was a way out.
17 at SUWS in the deserts of Idaho with our handmade packs and clothes we had been living in for over 3 weeks straight.