The Fortune-Telling Porch Swing

So during my long stretch of time spent at the River, I spent a lot of time on our porch reading, as always. Okay, if you want to be specific, it's not really a porch. It used to be, with a screen and huge table and everything, it dominated two sides of the house. Now it's closed in and has these massive sliding windows, so we can close them when it rains and stuff to protect the wood floor, but still see outside all the time. BUT for the purposes of this discussion, we are going to call it a porch.

So as I was saying, I did a ton of reading on the porch, usually sitting on our porch swing. Although, I guess it's not really a swing, as it doesn't hang from the ceiling and it's not made of wood. We used to have one of those, but it dry-rotted. This thing has a metal frame and the rest is fabric...I suppose it's really a glider. BUT once again, for the purposes of this discussion we are going to refer to it as a porch swing.

So I was reading on the porch swing with a fan blowing the fresh air from outside in my face, but I was too preoccupied with my terribly chipped toenail polish to get very far in the novel. My hideous toenails reminded me of my torturous times in middle school, when I used to constantly paint my nails really flamboyant colors and patterns, which led me to remember the time when I bought my middle school boyfriend there with me, and we had sat on that very same swing. I remember the conversations we had perfectly, and what we were wearing, and how the weather was. It was like a movie in my brain or something.

I thought back a little further, and I remembered the time my Great-Uncle Richard had flown up from Florida to spend some time with all of us, along with his wife, who we all call Aunt Secret. He and I sat on that swing, talking about school, friends, life, water-skiing....and a year later, he had died.

I remembered a mere summer ago, when I bought my friend and musical mentor Matt down to go fishing and hang out for the day. He convinced me to audition for All-Districts on that swing/glider, and gave me advise on how to handle the stress of Wind Ensemble now that he and the other experienced seniors had graduated.

After remembering all these people and conversations and jokes and overall just special moments, I started wondering about the future. Someday, when I'm older and wiser and hopefully successful, I might be engaged, or married, or have children of my own (although I dearly hope not). And I wondered, 20 or 40 or 60 years from now, who will be sitting on that swing with me? What will I have done with my life? What college will I have gone to? Will my best friend and I still be best friends? Will I still eat tomato sandwiches and watermelon there with my mother? Will my cousins and I still hang out, and sit on the beach together? What will have happened to the golfcart we have ridden all our lives?

Will the people across the street still seem as immature to me as they do now? Will I have the same boat as now, or a newer, faster one? Will I have a jetski? What color will it be? What car will I drive? Will it still run on gasoline? Will someone build a house on the empty lot across the street? That would be annoying, it would block our view of the water. What books will I read, sitting on that familiar seat? Will I still text my friends, or will we have holographs? 

How will my world change while this swing stays the same?