Everything is blooming

Everything feels awful

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Spring is a struggle. Everything blooming, everything pushing through the dirt to begin again. I don’t do well in this season. Maybe because I, too, am pushing through some dirt. The process of growth—of expansion—is painful.

I’ve talked about having summer seasonal affective disorder, but honestly, it’s spring that is the worst for me. Everything is blooming. Everything feels awful. Nothing has settled into its summer shape yet. I want to fast forward to July.

The older I get, the more seasonal allergies seem to affect me; the more my sinuses seem to push on my face and head, screaming to get out. My migraines love to creep in during this time as well. The temps are all over the place and my body struggles to adjust. Spring is a bitch. I associate this season with pain and discomfort.

I’ve been so teary this week. I’ve had big, heaving cries on my acupressure mat. Spring does this to me. I am also, maybe, always, a bit like this. Crying is regulating to me. It’s not something I can do on command, but it is something that I do quite frequently. This week, this month, last month, the month before that, etc, have all felt difficult. May has felt the worst, as it usually does for me.

I am always trying to be “normal.” I wish I didn’t, but I still hate myself for not being “normal.” I don’t feel like I feel things “normally.” I don’t feel like I act “normal.” I’m not even sure what I believe “normal” is, but I guess I think it’s someone who doesn’t cry so easily. Someone who doesn’t have sensation memories that haunt them daily. Someone who can deal with being overtired and not feel unwell. Someone who can just feel things they don’t like and let them go. Someone who isn’t clinging on for dear life. Someone who isn’t terrorized by spring.

I do love some things about this wretched season, though. I love the birds, the greenery, the flowers: lilacs and magnolias, the baby goslings I see on my walks. Everything, everyone is out and about. That is also part of my struggle, though: I want to be out and and about, too, and I don’t always feel like I can. As I brace myself to get through this season, I hope that I can find some peace and ease.

In times of stress, I often retreat to a visualization I created years ago. One of a snowy cottage, close to, but far enough, from other snowy cottages. The home is dressed in soft twinkle lights. It is usually dusk. I walk the land and hear the snow crunching beneath me. I breathe in the chilly air and feel alive.

Perhaps I can bring my snowy cottage to this spring moment, touch my feet to the grass, and breathe.

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10. Coming back to this great: “You're on your own dark side of the border tonight/And you're all fucked up and you'rе wanting to die/And that's the place/whеre the breaking out begins/It's the divine fault line opening”