If I take a deep breath I can picture my life in September. I imagine summer's sunshine clinging on to me, recognizing the island girl trapped in the cold and longing to keep me warm with its thick rays. Warmth betrays me once again, allowing me to fall into the blissful trap of forgetting what it is like to feel truly frigid. I will forget what it's like to have windchill creeping up through goose-bump subway systems in my skin. September will grow colder. As time goes on, I know I'll reminisce on things I should try to distance from my mind. I dread September, and any mention of the future, because to me, the future is merely a reflection of the past. Emotions that I've forgotten will come creeping back. My closest friend will resume her whispering, and as days get darker, she will get louder, and perhaps consume my soul by winter.
But maybe, a "better" me will look at the fall with an open mind, and worry not so much about the vileness of the air, but the warmth of my jacket, and the freedom of solitude. I wonder if I will be truly alone? While every person I know "finds themselves" abroad, which I now know is a fancy way of describing twenty-somethings with too much money who run away from their problems, I will be here, trying to find reasons to convince myself that solitude is poetic. I'll try to stop sundown from representing death. I'll throw myself into physics, and brain chemistry, as if understanding dopamine or oxytocin could ever make someone fall in love with me.
I remember when I used to motivate myself on a morning by whispering "try not to die" as I rolled into yoga pants and a sweater. I would try to hide my medication bottles from myself, or put them on top shelves, just out of reach. I would call my friends and tell them not to let me out of sight until I felt like I was rational. I would run off into the woods and sit beneath trees until I no longer felt nauseous, and snowflakes on my face felt warm. I remember days of having to talk myself into classes, chapel, getting out of bed, eating or socializing. I remember eating only fruit for days and trying to see if anyone would notice I was hungry.
Next fall, I'll probably resume this mantra, and I'll never stop telling myself, "try not to die". I'll replace friendship with 150 milligrams of serotonin and conversation with caffeine. Fulfilling relationships will be replaced with an outstanding GPA.
I'm dreading autumn way too soon. Anxiety has convinced me that I need to worry about this right now. Of course, the genuine reason that I'm worried is because I can hear the clock ticking down to our ending. Spring used to mean growth and new life (and mating season in the animal kingdom if you want to be technical), but it's come to mean endings since I sat beneath that white tent, wearing a white dress and saying good bye to my family and my childhood. Spring has come to mean pulling away from the circle in an Escalade, seeing tough boys teary wrecks and feeling like the clouds were crying just to add symbolism to the retelling of our form's story. I think of spring as the last good memories I have of sitting with a boy I loved outside Sheppe's, the two of us reeking of repellant and freshly cut grass.
Spring is a good time for "lasts" and I sent forth my annual desperate plea to a potentially non-existent God that this spring will be uncharacteristically void of lasts. I'm terrified of kissing him for the last time or waking up to him for the last time. I hate endings more than I hate change and I think I would hate this ending the most. I'm too young to be heartbroken, but I feel as if my heart - and all it's little whims - is merely a transplant with a limited amount of time before my body rejects it. Losing him would be cardiac arrest. My blood vessels would be tangled up in knots, cutting off oxygen and emotion to every part of me.
I will feel like a first dip in the Nashua River at the beginning of spring. As the water first crests over my head, the icy, untamed river, ceases my breathing and ceases my existence for a heavenly second. (Suicide's dream.) All I want is warm, fresh, spring air to fill every unused corner of my lungs and push me above the surface into my real life, where nothing matters. You are nothing. Five minutes in this water, and you would die. (Frostbite, drowned by the current, hitting head on the dock, leg cramp.) This time, I will not be reliant on strong half-Dominican arms to pull me onto the dock. I will be alone, on a spring (summer?) night and when I look to my left, expecting my skeleton crutches to prepare for my never-ending complaints and woes, there will be nothing but the sound of New England cicadas and the dangerous rushing of a polluted river.
But maybe, a "better" me will look at the fall with an open mind, and worry not so much about the vileness of the air, but the warmth of my jacket, and the freedom of solitude. I wonder if I will be truly alone? While every person I know "finds themselves" abroad, which I now know is a fancy way of describing twenty-somethings with too much money who run away from their problems, I will be here, trying to find reasons to convince myself that solitude is poetic. I'll try to stop sundown from representing death. I'll throw myself into physics, and brain chemistry, as if understanding dopamine or oxytocin could ever make someone fall in love with me.
I remember when I used to motivate myself on a morning by whispering "try not to die" as I rolled into yoga pants and a sweater. I would try to hide my medication bottles from myself, or put them on top shelves, just out of reach. I would call my friends and tell them not to let me out of sight until I felt like I was rational. I would run off into the woods and sit beneath trees until I no longer felt nauseous, and snowflakes on my face felt warm. I remember days of having to talk myself into classes, chapel, getting out of bed, eating or socializing. I remember eating only fruit for days and trying to see if anyone would notice I was hungry.
Next fall, I'll probably resume this mantra, and I'll never stop telling myself, "try not to die". I'll replace friendship with 150 milligrams of serotonin and conversation with caffeine. Fulfilling relationships will be replaced with an outstanding GPA.
I'm dreading autumn way too soon. Anxiety has convinced me that I need to worry about this right now. Of course, the genuine reason that I'm worried is because I can hear the clock ticking down to our ending. Spring used to mean growth and new life (and mating season in the animal kingdom if you want to be technical), but it's come to mean endings since I sat beneath that white tent, wearing a white dress and saying good bye to my family and my childhood. Spring has come to mean pulling away from the circle in an Escalade, seeing tough boys teary wrecks and feeling like the clouds were crying just to add symbolism to the retelling of our form's story. I think of spring as the last good memories I have of sitting with a boy I loved outside Sheppe's, the two of us reeking of repellant and freshly cut grass.
Spring is a good time for "lasts" and I sent forth my annual desperate plea to a potentially non-existent God that this spring will be uncharacteristically void of lasts. I'm terrified of kissing him for the last time or waking up to him for the last time. I hate endings more than I hate change and I think I would hate this ending the most. I'm too young to be heartbroken, but I feel as if my heart - and all it's little whims - is merely a transplant with a limited amount of time before my body rejects it. Losing him would be cardiac arrest. My blood vessels would be tangled up in knots, cutting off oxygen and emotion to every part of me.
I will feel like a first dip in the Nashua River at the beginning of spring. As the water first crests over my head, the icy, untamed river, ceases my breathing and ceases my existence for a heavenly second. (Suicide's dream.) All I want is warm, fresh, spring air to fill every unused corner of my lungs and push me above the surface into my real life, where nothing matters. You are nothing. Five minutes in this water, and you would die. (Frostbite, drowned by the current, hitting head on the dock, leg cramp.) This time, I will not be reliant on strong half-Dominican arms to pull me onto the dock. I will be alone, on a spring (summer?) night and when I look to my left, expecting my skeleton crutches to prepare for my never-ending complaints and woes, there will be nothing but the sound of New England cicadas and the dangerous rushing of a polluted river.
Chica, I know the thought of things ending is scary as hell, and I know you know what scary looks and feels and tastes like. I cannot protect you from an ocean of distance. I cannot pretend to know how to protect you from yourself. I wish I did, I wish I knew how to make you understand how strong and worthy and fab you are. I don't. But I promise you this fall you won't be alone, you'll have me. I know I'm not enough, but it's all I can offer, and I care, and that means something. -chewbecca
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