What was is to be and what is to be is what was once what was to be before it was

The world was exactly the way I had left it. It had felt like thousands of years of my conscience repeating different cycles only for me to realise the problem in the span of a chapter. Without a doubt there was a substantial change within me. I did not self loath myself as I stared into a conveniently placed mirror which I definitely knew that I owned. It was my apartment room that I had decided to move into once I started at the prestigious University For Untalented People. Both choices were terribly bad and that brought back some level of self-loathing, not an extreme level, more like a smidgeon or a manageable amount. On my desk sat a blank lined paper with an unused pen placed in a perfect position above it. Memories of a life that I never really lived flashed through my brain and I recalled something important. Things would not change unless I changed myself first. Usually that is where I would begin my three month long training character arc but there was little time left before I could enrol at the University I really wanted to go to. The University For People With A Sense Of Direction In Life.

I quickly dressed and raced outdoors into a world full of life. Life that didn't want to attack me every second. As I turned the corner immediate to my apartment a small man bumped into me dropping his flyers in a comical fashion. Something within me felt the need to help this poor person meticulously picking their dropped flyers scattered across the floor in front of me. Like the weight of my selves pushing me forward I stooped low and interrupted his methodical picking-up-technique.

"Sorry about that random-flyer-guy-whose-name-I-don't-kno-" My mouth froze in it's flapping tracks and my head jolted back. "Sorry about this. What is your name?"

"It's Mackenzie, most people tell me that's a girls name so I just go by Mak. We've actually met before but this is the first time you have talked to me." He seemed so excited by our small encounter, something that would generally seem so insignificant to anyone, but I found a strange joy from it.

"Well Mackenzie, it is nice to talk to you. I am intrigued by these flyers however. Why don't I help you hand them out?" I looked at my watch, the deadline to the university was about to end. I looked at the person in front of me, his face lit up and it was a happiness that I forgot existed in this world. Maybe it wasn't where I was, but my attitude. "I do have all the time in the world for it."

"Great! Great great great great! You know I knew I could count on you the moment I bumped into you. You seem like a great person and you have this peculiar smell. It's like sweet-smelling-strawberries." I laughed at his comment. It was a fresh take on who I am, on who I should be. Who I will be. We walked down the hallways and began our conversations about our dreary and boring lives. It was the most exciting moment that I had lived, ever.

Soon, we stood by his door his mother greeting me and whispering what a good influence I seemed. I functioned in a way that not only gave me immense elation but in a way that made other people happy. Perhaps that was the paradox I was running from and being trapped in, in my mysterious mind. Pleasing people when I myself was un-pleased would never work out. The paper felt heavy now in my pocket and I picked it out to stare at my lost opportunity. Was it really for the better? Really really really?

"Oh you didn't apply either. Hahahaha what a coincidence. Fate, even?" A womanly goddess angelic voice echoed throughout my cranium. There she stood, a woman I had and had not ever seen before to justify my choice. Not that I needed an outside source to clarify or sanctify my choice.

"I got caught up helping out someone and missed the deadline. Also I saw a very cute flock of pigeons on the way here and may have spent many minutes pondering what it would be like to be a pigeon." She stared at me in awe and burst into laughter. I quickly got entangled in the mixture of laughter and tears. It seemed that we both had missed out on our dreams but I knew that there was much more to my life. She did too.

"Sorry if it seems weird but I feel like I know you. Like it's weird ok. It feels like I've smelt you somewhere before." Her face was red and the sunset was a deep orange. As the moon waltzed over the sky we walked in direction far from where we should have been heading.

The sky grew darker and darker and our idle chit-chat grew longer and longer. It seemed as though throughout my whole life this small moment was the longest. Years had passed in my mind, my imagination and amalgamations of the futures that I had once yearned for seemed incomparably short and insignificant to this one momentary part of my day. It was something that I had desperately missed and only earlier when I had bumped into fate in the form of flyers at my doorstep had I realised it.

Conversation.

Dialogue.

Taking a breath.

Quiet.

Silence.

Love.

Love.

Love.

Was it pretentious of me to impose my love onto this woman, though it seemed the more I listened to her the more it seemed that I wasn't in-fact imposing anything. It was a genuine connection that we were forming. We bonded. I couldn't ask for more in this whole world. The only thing that couldn't escape my emptying mind was her name.

Her voice.

Her face.

Her eyes.

We were at the edge of our interaction and at the edge of the ocean, the breeze whipping about my hair and her hair and tangling our embarrassment of the suddenly instantaneously romantic situation we had stumbled into. Her gaze latched onto my own despite my attempts to avert it. I'd usually hope for a miracle at this point, from what I had discovered about myself it was all I could do. Something take the wheel of my fate and direct it elsewhere. I was shaking.

Frightened.

Scared.

Terrified of changing into something better.

Someone better.

For someone better.

For someone who wants to be better than they are.

And once more my mind worked itself through this knot. She had spoken for so long about so many things that I could relate to, to events and choices that I had and would have made. She was so much like me, willing so much to change but her mind held her back. We were both stuck in this precipice of an eternal breakdown at the choice of moving forward. I hadn't thought for a second being in my new state of mind on how to move forward. To make use of the four, five years that were ahead of me. In my mind they had already happened multiple times over and no prize, I mean NO prize could fix the problem.

"I just want to be happy but I always feel like there is something missing. Some kind of validation from a person who I know knows me best." Our sentences had drifted to this point somehow.

"I..." My brain replied and replayed ways to word my next words right. I recalled who I was and who I am and who I wanted to be know. I know I am not cut out for the most extravagant life or the life of grovelling at someone far more handsome than me or being arrogant at a position above others. I had truly been humbled by myself.

I am who I am.

I was who I was.

A thought, no a memory, no a WORLD popped into my head. And for the last time I listened to it.

Not often do I hear the words, 'You've won', and definitely not in my whole time living (living as in the thing that I do now, a life to fulfil myself and enjoy everyday to my best ability and at my own pace) have I ever dreamed that I would, 'win'. But I have. Somehow from my shallow pit of despair and put together outfit that matches well with my character themed socks did I win something of magnificent significance to the whole world. It felt like crowds of people had begun to pick me up and like a bird with no wings (and with the most present pair of pants) I was sent soaring through the ocean of bodies that had lined up for the prestigious Prize Announcement. Mostly I received the long practiced jealousy look. The, 'Oh that pants-wearing-nobody-who-has-a-smell-kind-of-like-strawberries-random-guy doesn't deserve it', kind of look. I began to shake at the thought of being tossed into the volcano full of self-doubt and worry and every other dark feeling that came with a pair of fangs like knives but at the same time felt safe clutching on to the idea of my prize. They couldn't harm me while I was holding this exclusive well sought after, one-hundred percent real and non-fictional prize. Like some sort of budget toy on a conveyer belt I was being passed down to the foot of the throne of my new worst nightmare. Feelings. Commitment. Love. I opened my mouth full of terror and confidence. I would take this prize and nobody could stop me.

"I feel the same way, to have somebody so important that understands you and listens to you and is there for you. Like you've been to me today and like i've been for you as well. I'm sorry if i'm moving a bit fast but I think I'm in love with you." She stared at me her own mouth gaping. There was a short moment of silence and then she began giggling. It was infectious. In her fit she looked up at me and smiled with a sweet smile, one that could have knocked me dead right then and there.

"I'm not sure why, but I think I'm in love with you too. And to be absolutely honest, it's scary, I can't stop shaking. But it's a good scary. A scary that maybe I need to change to make myself happy and a scary that seeing you change makes me happy."

We both paused and as if she were there in my very mind and memories she said something that stuck with me forever.

"And you are finally happy here. Truly very happy with what you have eased yourself into becoming. You realised that you could change everything about your life by changing YOURSELF. And that is why I knew I could love you. Here in this world."

All of time stopped for that single moment. Something that became my very definition to living. I had such a chaotic mind that went a million-miles-an-hour but now it felt slower, more in-tune to my life and my thoughts.

It was there in my mind, where my words created worlds.