Life, Friends & Adulthood

I haven’t looked up in a long time—not since I stepped into adulthood.

I had that thought when I was out earlier, so I looked up. Or, when I looked up, that thought came to me. Either way, I saw a dandelion¹ fluttering in the air. It drifted against the white clouds, almost monovular with them, its fine white furs blending into the sky. Only its silhouette of its fragile core at the center made it visible at all. My eyes traced its trajectory as it descended haphazardly—or maybe it was a coordinated dance? I watched it as it neared a tree, perhaps about to land to make a permanent home of the leaves and the earth beneath.

When it had finally decided to settle, a shift in the fair winds came and sent it upward again. Some of its strands fluttered away, but the core, as though resisting and grasping onto the remaining ones tightly, flapped weakly, trying to steer itself back on course. I almost thought it had control. But no, it was carried just as before. It drifted weightlessly in a direction it had no control over, continuously moving towards uncharted territories, taken elsewhere before it could even touch down.

And then, it was gone.

Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe I just wasn’t meant to see where it had disappeared.

I lowered my gaze once more. The world continued moving as it always had. The unnoticed passage of time quietly resettled on my shoulders.