It was senior year of high school. Only 2-3 months left until the end of tyranny. I was sitting in my lifelong barbershop waiting for the chair. It hit me suddenly with no warning, this was the end. High school was over. Realistically, many of these "friendships" were over. I knew that people would go their separate ways and drift apart when college hit. I would never see or deal with some of these people, friends and associates, again. Just like that, my present life & my whole world, which meant so much, suddenly became quickly dissipating smoke. I was about to start all over from scratch. Everything before was about to not matter so much, at least not on the surface. It was backstory.
It’s hard to recall and much harder to describe all of the feelings and thoughts from that moment in a way that makes sense. It was rapid cognition and an instant, all at once feeling. It was very ecclesiastes. It was existential. It was depression popping back up after so many years.