At my school Concord Academy, there is something called the Chapel. Not the type of building, really, but a fifteen-minute speech seniors make in front of the entire school. The building is also called the chapel, but I'd like to think the speech came first. This may be the only way some remember these seniors, but that's not what makes the speech important. It's that in those fifteen minutes, they are the only ones talking. I do want to give my Chapel one day or maybe I don't, because in those in-between moments, I feel myself staring into that furthest side of the campus, and my mind finds that sixteenth minute of my Chapel. Just after the cheering subsides. Just after the sweat has dried. Just as my friends behind and around me stop jeering, I walk away from the podium. Just like a normal person would. But at that moment I find myself unable to approach, to find what I am approaching. Tethered to the podium looking back and blind to my front, scared of peeking behind the blinds to find out if what was knocking is a tree branch or a finger.

So I'd like to call this my Chapel, one for me and for you reading this, and maybe I can come back 10 years, maybe struggling emotionally and financially, when the world burns a bit different but still burns, and remember the person that wrote had dreams, and stories, and quirks, and strong opinions in a Chapel that wouldn't pass. 15 minutes and not one more.

There you have it. I'm too scared of the future, so now I'm writing a book.