That's what he said to me last June. Your cousin.

just another broken promise

He is in my thoughts again, though I think he has never really left them. I found a good boulder today to sit on and watch the sunset. I brought along my cdplayer and headphones and listened to Westlife as the sun set. The sky is so much more brilliant here. The colors are more vibrant, richer. It's bigger too. My breath catches every time I watch it go down. I don't want it to ever end. The music transports me out of time and place. It's like Time freezes for a moment. It's the only time of the day when I am truly at peace.

But, the sun goes down anyway and I am sucked back into reality. I can't freeze time, I can't turn it back. It just goes on and on. Getting down off my boulder in the dark, I turn and see the moon. It jogs my memory. "when you move here we will have plenty of time to have fun together ".

I don't know whether to be angry or sad at the lie. For it was a lie. There wasn't any time. Be careful of promises made. Only make the ones you can keep. It's not right to bring up someone's hopes. Especially, if you can't follow through.

On the wave of life, bringing up hopes is like lifting them up higher on the crest of the wave, dashed hopes are thrown further down when the wave crashes. There is more damage done than if the person was lower down on the wave. So... don't bring up hopes, even if there are good intentions, unless you can deliver on them.

I feel cheated.

Life does not feel like a tree with branches and paths to be taken. It's only one destiny followed, unmoving, unyielding and unchanging.

Staring back at the adventures lived, there are no regrets for not living. A life well lived, and unbroadcast. No adventure logs on a stream of social media. The friends who cared kept in touch personally.

The adventurer grows tired, their life lived like a 40 hour video game, and yet it's just a little over half over. There is no need for a midlife crisis when so much of life has been lived. Now it just feels like a book with pages that do not end.

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