Change
Dylan Henry
We sat at this little table in this little café: me, my mom, my dad, my brother and sister, and we ate breakfast together. I realized that in just a week, this little hole in the wall would be closed forever, and that was a big deal. We didn't visit often, but I could remember all the particular times that I sat in that little cafe over my lifetime.
It means much more to other people then it does to me. Workers will lose their jobs and many senior citizens will lose their Sunday mass brunch spot, but it’s more than a cafe closing, it’s a change. Little by little, everything around me is changing. The houses, the stores, the people, and me. Little by little, I grow and watch the world grow too, although I’ve grown for the better. The closer I get to being an adult, the more things from my childhood have disappeared. Like the little restaurant down the street from the café. In the summer after eighth grade, me and my best friends basically lived there. Our weekly visits included salad eating, shit talking, TV show obsessing, and, mostly, worrying about the future. For that hour or two or three or the whole night together, we could forget that we'd all be starting over at new schools, and all we needed was each other in that moment in time.
What we didn't realize was that we kinda needed the place, too. It was closed in the beginning of our sophomore year. We still hang out, and when we do, we walk past the old closed down restaurant and reminisce about what was and talk about what is. Now life is harder, so it's nice to be in the past for an hour or two or the whole night. We are starting to learn things like how to drive and spend money carefully, when we used to spend our money on salads and breakfast at the cafe after pulling an all-nighter. Me and my friends have always hated where we lived; anywhere seemed better and I've always felt trapped because sometimes it didn't seem like enough. It has been changing with us, this town and my friends and me. From starting to explore this place, being 12 and walking around, to being 16 and thinking about leaving. I’m sad that it’s changing; I’m gonna miss having the comfort of knowing they're there, the cafe, the restaurant, my friends, mom, dad, my brother and sister. I've spent my whole life hating it, but I never want it to change. It's what formed me. It the sole reason I am who I am. The concrete sidewalks that scraped my knees, the red bricked houses are the only thing I know. The walls that heard my singing and the floors that felt my dancing. I don't want it to change, because if one day I look in the mirror and I don't recognize myself, if I look different, if I ever feel lost and can’t remember who I am, then I’ll visit the sidewalks, the narrow streets, and that little café and maybe I'll remember.
