Just sand

Today I ran after school with Robert. We ran about 6 miles barefooted into the woods on private property to get to a pond. It felt like a light summer. The sun on my back and the dirt on my feet. No obligations, no worries, no time. When I run it's like I control time. Time is my bitch and it waits on me. Yeah, We are crazy for running so far to swim and yeah, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I've done this run before, but never with chilly weather like this. My feet were lightly frozen. As we are running I usually lead the conversation[no duh] and most of the time I'm surprised at how we change subject so quickly. You would be shocked to know how much information a person would share if they were just a little tired.OK, so we ran the first 3 miles till we reached to pond. As usual, we soak our legs in the water for a few mins to soop up our legs. Most of the time we run there, swim, then run back. Today we decided that the wind was blowing entirely too much to swim, but disregarding reason, somehow we ended up in the water anyway. ha When we got out of the water the wind seemed to pick up. We talked about using the warm sand to dry off, arguing the pros and cons. I could deal with being sandy while running back. The trail was always wet anyway so it would only be a matter of time before the sand would be washed away. The pro of warmth dominated the con of being cold. :) We laid on the top of a big sandy hill just talking about random stuff. Robert brought up my dreaded subject, Life after High School. We talked about how most likely we would never remain in contact with our friends. Finding friends would not be a problem for either of us. How hard it is going to be to find new 'Best friends'? We must have talked for a hour and a half on that warm sandy hill. I played with the sand most of the time we were conversing, trying not to imagine the G word. [graduation]. I wanted badly to pretend that I could avoid graduation thoughts.When he brought up college, degrees, and the thought of me doing the same job for the rest of my life, I my brain couldn't take it anymore. I stood up and asked him if he was ready. He failed to notice that I dodged most of his questions. Not because I couldn't answer them, but because I just didn't want to think about it. As we ran back I tired to lighten my mood with banter and bringing up old times when we would all hang out during the summer. Talking about how everyone got on everyone's nerves. When we got back to our cars Robert was complaining about how he didn't want to get sand in his car. I kinda laughed climbing into the 'dollar car', sand was never an issue with me. I said "chill out Robert it's just sand". He laughed, "Yeah, Same time tomorrow?"I responded " Yeah sure". " Later Matt" " Later" After I shut my door the words that came out of my mouth jingled in my head over and over. "Just sand" How is it that ''Just sand" could have such an effect on me? I would look back on this part of my life and think how my memories were shaped by little things such as sand.