Count Backward, First. Spring Forward, Second.

In the several days following Valentines Day and yet another snowstorm, it dawns on me: I am no longer that “spring chicken,” who makes sure that all her eggs are in a row. Hell, I no longer have ovulating eggs, but that’s an aside. Back when I was akin to webbed feet poultry, particularly useful for the rainy season, I welcomed more daylight hours, which meant freedom; afforded to someone coming of age that is not yet permitted to gallivant at dusk. The later sunset was all the allowance I ever needed.

Once spring arrived, I was quick to have an after school snack, complete homework and extracurricular activities, and then venture outside whether that be to take a walk along the avenue, sit on my stoop, or scope out what my neighborhood friends were up to. Now, I don’t welcome a later sunset. I am always exhausted by the self-inflicted bombardment of thoughts and so I could at least count on the darkness for socially normalized winding down, if anything, forcing me to believe that I should put my mind at rest.

I have begun to hear birds chirping in the early hours. I have noticed the sunrise altered from the past several weeks. There are now streaks of pastel pink and orange in an amicable ombre dissimilar from the striking and paradoxical fiery reds and burnt oranges that appear on the coldest of winter days. Dainty motifs, and delicate silhouettes in the latest clothing collections pry out my girlish feminine affinity from the depths of my cotton candy pink childhood bedroom walls. I opt out of the solid swatches better aligned with my 30-year-old preferences and beeline to the bandana print – a slightly more mature sister to its floral counterpart.

On a clear spring day, the sun shines through the slits of the blinds, aggravating me in the process. I intentionally keep the blinds drawn to prevent natural light. My aggravation aggravates me because I want to welcome the windows’ unannounced guests, just as I had done during my formative years, when I was ordered to draw the blinds closed once nightfall descended. Times have changed. I want to spring into action – be employed, write, cook something more calorically dense – an actual meal, defined and not prefaced with “micro-,” defying normative constructions in a millenial pursuit to prove that everyone and everything can be correct.

I come back to writing this almost two weeks later. The sun rises by 6 am now, the birds are chirping to no end at all hours of the day. The weather is deceiving. The sun shines in clear skies, beckoning me, only to leave me winded upon opening the door to a blustery cold whiplash. It’s still winter, my girl.

I left off from writing this again, and come back over a week later. We are still in the midst of winter. It is overcast on several days. Snow falls in the silently sweet manner we wish it had done so months ago, when it should have, while we were in anticipation of a white Christmas. Now, the white precipitate is unwelcome. Now, we wish we were seeing someone’s wishes floating airborne, uplifted, still riding on hope – the aftermath of having blown on a dandelion.

It is St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th. I was up since before 5 am, in bed with fever and chills. My feet were ice, my head on fire, and my body, a burden. I had my second dose of the Moderna vaccine for COVID-19 some hours before. Today, I uncomfortably tiptoed out of bed so as not to stir my parents who I do not get along with. They barrage me with bitter insults, inevitably taint me with the stigma of a ravaging eating disorder and unemployment as a dual-degree holding adult still living at home. I tiptoed to make my breakfast that is judged as disordered because its too healthy, which they presumably equate to being on a diet. I tiptoed because I aim to quickly rush out to the gym without confronting their harrowing glares that sear into my soul, enabling the internal compulsion to do excess. I become an adolescent in angst – rebellious.

While the past two days have been frenetic, and anything but a revocation of spring – clean, fresh, washed by rain, and grown from Earth – one of the most jolting days I have experienced since returning home from inpatient treatment in 2019, was this past Sunday, Daylight Savings. I wanted to embrace the prolonged daylight hours, knowing that I have had less than stellar experiences with the concept since anorexia surfaced. I no longer had the cover of night to covertly grind bones into the ground. Now, I did not need any cloaking device. I had nothing to conceal.

On Sunday, after even less than the four hours in bed, not sleeping, I glanced at the time. It was already 7 am. I counted backward first. It should have, would have, been almost 6 am. I then sprung forward, off my bed, as it dawned on me – the clock sprung forward. By that time, fatigued and head pounding, I will have had finished eating breakfast and be on my way to the gym. Sunday was my designated day of rest from any form of exercise, that is, until I took off on Friday at my mother’s will. As an adult, this stirred me, and as someone suffering from exercise compulsion, this fueled me to go down into the basement where I engage in a painful exercise routine. That was my Sunday and my experience Daylight Savings Day. I was on edge, rushed, frenzied, and hurting.

The beautiful thing about life is that so long as one is alive, there is always an opportunity to cleanse. That which is done cannot be undone – the empty promise for what “cleanse” is and can do according to marketers. We can cleanse, freshen – not refresh, generate, create, produce. After all, it isn’t the Spring Equinox yet. And the groundhog has granted me a buffer. I can still make peace with spring.  There is still time for me to open the blinds. Perhaps I’ll ever so slightly let the shutters flirt with each other instead of touch – one window. Then I’ll try to let them part ways and find themselves for a while. Maybe I’ll see if they can handle long-distance, and then from there, I’ll venture to a second window.