January 1st, 1895 — Padmore Park, Evening
Sapphire found herself looking up at the night sky as she sat on a bench near the newly renovated gardens wondering where the last year had gone.
Far too fast, for her liking, if she did say so herself. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it already being ‘95. She wasn’t sure how she felt about being almost twenty, about leaving her teens behind even though she had known this was coming, eventually, but it had seemed to sneak up on her without her notice.
She remembered thinking the same thing about almost being 19, and 18, and 17. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked forward to the changing of the year; maybe the year she turned 11, but that felt so long ago.
It felt like she hadn’t done anything in the last year, when she knew she must’ve done something. She knew she had to do something different this year, to make it more memorable than the last few years had been. She didn’t like feeling like she had been on auto-pilot.
Sapphire had an aspiration for the New Year, and it was to do better for herself. Maybe make a new friend or two. If only she felt more encouraged to get to know people outside her circle that seemed to only be her family and coworkers. She didn’t really talk to anyone else, which made a small part of her sad but she had never been the outgoing, social person. That had been her best friend, someone that she hadn’t talked to since their fifth year.
Now that she thought about it, she figured she could make the deliberate choice to change how she approached people in 1895. Perhaps turning 20 this year was good, perhaps it was her chance to turn a new leaf and be more social. Maybe it could become her own personal journey.
The nineteen year old was so immersed in her own thoughts that she didn’t notice people nearby. She vaguely recognized one of the people, but she couldn’t put a name to their face.
Far too fast, for her liking, if she did say so herself. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it already being ‘95. She wasn’t sure how she felt about being almost twenty, about leaving her teens behind even though she had known this was coming, eventually, but it had seemed to sneak up on her without her notice.
She remembered thinking the same thing about almost being 19, and 18, and 17. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked forward to the changing of the year; maybe the year she turned 11, but that felt so long ago.
It felt like she hadn’t done anything in the last year, when she knew she must’ve done something. She knew she had to do something different this year, to make it more memorable than the last few years had been. She didn’t like feeling like she had been on auto-pilot.
Sapphire had an aspiration for the New Year, and it was to do better for herself. Maybe make a new friend or two. If only she felt more encouraged to get to know people outside her circle that seemed to only be her family and coworkers. She didn’t really talk to anyone else, which made a small part of her sad but she had never been the outgoing, social person. That had been her best friend, someone that she hadn’t talked to since their fifth year.
Now that she thought about it, she figured she could make the deliberate choice to change how she approached people in 1895. Perhaps turning 20 this year was good, perhaps it was her chance to turn a new leaf and be more social. Maybe it could become her own personal journey.
The nineteen year old was so immersed in her own thoughts that she didn’t notice people nearby. She vaguely recognized one of the people, but she couldn’t put a name to their face.
MJ made the pretties