Back in high school I ran all the time in the evenings. It was the only time I had, so by the time eight or nine a clock came around I laced up my shoes and headed out the door. I knew the route I would take by heart so I never thought about it, I just followed my feet. The cold night air and a stillness of the night always made the run enjoyable. It was always me against the concrete that I ran on, but after a while of running I go used to it, I got better at it so I needed to find a new target.  A goal which I can improve myself on and push me to keeping going faster and further than before. The problem was that I always ran alone… the next best solution used the streetlights as my guide. It illuminated my shadow in front of me as I went along the path so I decided to chase my shadow. The intangible reflexion of myself, that always was a few feet in front of me no matter how hard I pushed myself. It became what I wanted to be, my ideal, always reaching toward but never being able to accomplish.

As any child, I chase my parents shadows, seeing their lives as they have them, forgetting the years of hardship and experience they gained to get there. I am at a weird time where I am trying to figure out what I want in life, but only seeing the end result, never the journey and the cost of things. I have been chasing shadows my whole life, running after things and people for what I thing could be instead of what they are.  Shadows that are seemingly huge only to realize its actually small, simple steps to get there. It’s hard to chase shadows, it doesn’t show you the way, it doesn’t  show you what it took to get there, all it is a representation of what could be when you cast light on it.  Its ironic in a way that what creates shadows is what destroy them. I can’t catch a shadow, because it was never there in the first place.

I don’t want to chase shadows, especially of those who are around anymore. I want to see the people behind the shadow, illuminating the path I have to take for myself.