the sun is out & i am alright again

hello, it's been a while. words have been hard lately, always just a little out of reach. i'm slowly starting to come back to myself, though, the same way all the snowdrops are starting to grow again in the gardens i walk past on my way to class. i always forget how much the winter makes things feel small and shuttered. how hard it feels to open a curtain and let the light in, there, doesn't that feel better?

i haven’t been writing much lately. i mean, i’ve been writing things, like papers and sticky notes and grocery lists, but when those are all done i just want to curl up and sleep until the dogwoods bloom. i miss picking lily-of-the-vallies from the yard and leaving them in tiny vases on every windowsill in the house. does that make me homesick? spring happens strangely here, even though all things considered i'm not really that far from where i grew up. maybe, then, it's just that everything else is new, so spring has just decided to follow suit. one day i'll stop being scared of being left behind.

i started this blog in part to learn how to open myself up. well, here i am, another emotional autopsy in some great blank space. how much of this is because deep down i am lonely & desperate to be known & how much is something else? i made bread today & thought while kneading it not everything has to be monumental, but spending time on the small things feels precarious. i will have to tell myself this again when i'm doing the dishes later, when i brush my teeth, when i pick up the stray sock from the floor while i'm doing laundry. sometimes it's alright to be small.

so many things have happened since i was here last. mostly little things that i won't care if i remember in six months, but i'll keep the receipts tacked to my wall just in case i start to forget. i think the thing i'm most scared of admitting is that i don't want to forget any of this, because that means i have something to lose. i'm caught between feeling like a person made up of a million tiny things & barely a person at all, but when the sun shines on my face everything feels okay again. i wake up every morning to the sun on my face, now. i have hardwood floors and dance around in my socks and i keep telling myself i'll get around to making the box of cake mix that's been sitting around my room for six months. i keep saving it for a rainy day, but i need to learn it's okay to do things just for the hell of it.

i laid in the sun on a blanket in a parking lot this week & remembered things are going to be alright. one day i'll learn to write about things in a way that doesn't feel like a spiral downwards into panic, reigned in every so often with a breath of fresh air. i am baking bread & tacking receipts to my wall & holding my person-ness together with one hand all the while, but when the birds sing in the mornings while i drink a cup of coffee it isn't all too bad. day by day, the world is becoming more of a place i can see myself in. i have two favorite mugs in the cabinet & made soup without a recipe for the first time and it turned out just fine. we're all going to be just fine.

published march 12, 2020

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