Spring

Spring was never a time that I desperately craved unless it was winter. I don’t like the birds or the bees. I shouldn’t say I don’t like them; I understand they both benefit the ecosystem but I would prefer them no where near me. I don’t like sweating and being sticky from humidity. I am not a fan of April showers; however, I do love May flowers.

Spring and I have a weird relationship. I love the warmth and sun on my skin but I can only tolerate it for so long. After an eternal winter, I’m happy to see the sun come out of hiding. I now feel disappointment when it rains or gets below 70 degrees. I love seeing flowers and the honeysuckle begin to bloom.

Spring brings family down from far off lands to spend Easter with us. Spring was tiny little eggs hidden in plain sight at Easter-Egg hunts. Spring was church and summer dresses of whites, blues, pinks, and yellows. Spring was knowing that summer was so close that you could smell the grills and bonfires that decorated the neighborhoods.

I can almost feel the sun hitting my skin and making me so miserable from the heat that I have to jump in a pool full of strangers; although, I despise strangers around me while I’m in water.

Adventures in Misbehaving

Getting into trouble was never my strong suit.  My brother, on the other hand, was notorious for being up to no good. When we were younger, my mom always sent me out to play with him. My brother and I never got along much so our adventures together always ended up with us hitting each other or calling each other names. We were forced together almost all of the time and I didn’t understand why.

One summer, a neighbor of ours had her grandson, Chris, stay with her. He was a year or two older than both of us, but he had no one else so he spent most of the days over at our house. I didn’t mind him except that he was essentially an older version of my brother: an annoying trouble-maker. We were all pretty young so we didn’t have a whole lot of freedom to drive other places. The best hangout we had was the woods.

We all decided to see who could go the deepest into the woods without getting scared and turning around. The trail our neighbors paved years before only went about a mile into the woods. We never really knew where we were but we always knew how to get back out.

The trail ended with a river. I guess it’s technically a creek but we always called it the river.

“Should we cross it?” Chris suggested to my brother.

“Dude, yes.” My brother laughed and pulled his shorts up high enough that the water wouldn’t hit them. I was the shortest of the three so i had to be carried by Chris across.

Chris had a crush on me so he wasn’t in the slightest bit hesitant.

After crossing the river we had Chris lead a way in front of us that would do the least damage to our bare legs.

There was an opening in the woods that lead to a field. Across the field was a road.

“Where are we?” I asked Rein because he claimed to be the King of directions.

“HEY!” we heard a voice from the house that was in the other yard.

All of our heads snapped in the direction to see a man with nothing but overalls on. He wasn’t wearing a shirt although his farmers tan made it look like he had a white shirt on. We all screamed and darted through the woods.

We ran and ran for what seemed like two minutes until we got to the water. We all jumped through and came our dripping wet, and cold. We didn’t stop running until we got to the house.

My mom yelled at us for getting wet and muddy. She told us on a daily basis not to go through the water because that’s where our property line ended.

We all changed and then talked about the journey all day. We made up some of the story to make it more interesting to the older neighbor boys and they believed us. We told them we were chased by the man and his dogs until we got to the river and they all disappeared.

We weren’t chased at all.

Looking back, the neighbor man was my bus driver’s husband and probably recognized my brother from his son.

At the time, we thought we were in trouble and running from being yelled at.

Writing

“Write hard and clear about what hurts” – Ernest Hemingway

I think that people too often write about things that are easy to write about. It’s easy to write about your loving cat or that wonderful boy or girl who you are so dearly in love with at the time. Writing about what hurts is a whole new animal. I think that it goes without saying that everyone experiences trauma in their life. We all experience death of a loved one, we experience betrayal of a friend, and we experience heart ache in some form or another. It’s not easy to write about what deeply hurts you, though those feelings are the most true and the easiest ones to feel.

When people hurt you it’s easy to think endlessly about that wrong and completely ignore the beautiful things another person has done to you. It’s so easy to think about the painful memories but where does it become difficult to write and share these things? Maybe it’s fear of rejection or the good ole, “Suck it up” we used to get from our parents when they thought our cuts and bruises were mere bumps. The saying never took the pain away, we desperately craved being told that our pain was important and we were strong for enduring such pain.

The things that we need to write about in order to let go of the pain are often the hardest. Writing about depression, loss, and abusive people is not easy nor will it ever be. But it is essential for relief, feeling as though you are being heard is one of the best feelings.

Now I’m going to continuously work on writing about what hurts me, although I feel invincible at times.

~Anna