mid-may

I prefer mid-May to any other claim of “spring”. By now we have passed through the thin, reedy days of weak sunshine and too-eager forsythia — how tragic a spring evening — and can now bottom out in a cloyingly viscous haze if we really allow ourselves to relax into the season.

The world smells differently this time of year. The earthy awakenings of March and April have birthed a sweet, guttural incense, intoxicating and irresistible once you step out of doors. Decay matures into depth; rot has blossomed with substance. It becomes nearly impossible to distance oneself from the forward motion of May.

But the tulips are nearly done, their petals over-extended already as they clamour too eagerly now for sunlight and an admiring gaze. Were herb seedlings always this expensive? Oh fuck I’m turning 35 years old what am I supposed to have done by now oh fuck.

My body has thrown in the towel this month. As someone with a usually-robust immune system, it’s extra demoralizing to be failed for the third time in as many weeks. I consider the grains of accuracy in those more spiritually-inclined folks when they say things like “a sore throat is your body’s way of showing that you have things unsaid”.

I say. I do say! I am always trying to say. That is what the last eight years of therapy have drawn out of me — me, an empathic bottomless well of feelings that rarely have anywhere else to go. I am doing the work. Show me what I am missing.

I met my father’s girlfriend last weekend. Today is two days until Mother’s Day. Today I am also recovering from Covid Round Two without health benefits or paid days off or a mom to voice concern over how much liquid and rest I am getting. My therapist thinks I am in a transition period.

I am not ready. For this, for anything. I am never ready, but these days I am especially not ready and it pains me to admit that.

Sit here with me. You. I need you here, and I am not ready to leave this place no matter how tiresome you find it. Meet me here. Meet me HERE. Allow me to swallow and be swallowed, not whole, never whole, but in episodes and reminders and fleeting moments because those are all I have of her, and of me, and of this life.

Wallowing in my lukewarm bathwater, saline droplets edge down my eyelashes to mingle with the lavender Epsom salts. I am deeply sad, and deeply alive, and these two truths may one day tear me apart.