A lot can change between planning something and actually doing it. But maybe all that really matters is that anything is different at all.

It was like that part of my life, was just gone. It was almost too easy, for something I once thought had meant everything.

It was so easy to disown what you couldn't recognize, to keep yourself apart from things that were foreign and unsettling. The only person you can be sure to control, always, is yourself. Which is a lot to be sure of, but at the same time, not enough.

Maybe I'd just figured out there were some things you were better off not knowing

There was no short answer to this; like so much else, it was a long story. But what really makes any story real is knowing someone will hear it. And understand.

one word could change the whole world

That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about.