Sunrise

8:36 am.

The sun has come out in full force, and yet it's still cool. It rained yesterday, the sky released a torrent lasting for hours. The ground was muddy and I slipped as I ventured outside. But not today. Today the cardinals and blue jays and robins and starlings are out and about. The trees are a shade of green I forgot existed, and the sky's without a single cloud. None of it feels quite... real. Something is off, and even as the plane takes off and cuts through the sound of the downstairs neighbor's generator I know that it's me. This postcard can't possibly exist. I feel like that starling. Out of place - an invasive species that you don't always catch sight of but know is there by its calls.

I wonder what type of calls others hear from me, then? Are they soft? Are they sad? Or are they the calls of a life desperate and driven by biology to survive, even if it means risking the local ecology?

My toes are slowly freezing on the wood of the patio, the one I spilled dirt all over three days ago when I planted the seeds I've been hoarding since Fall. I can feel the grit beneath my feet. I usually would mind, but right now all I can think of is that I can't believe I accidentally watered the seeds with the bleach water meant for cleaning. I'll watch them for the next two weeks anyway, hoping to see them pushing up out of the soil but probably knowing deep down they never will. Just another thing I've managed to ruin, right?

My toes are stiffening up now. This tells me that the idyllic scene beyond the patio screen is, in fact, real. At least that's something, right?

The birds became active around 5 this morning, and the sun began to rise at 6. But I? I haven't yet been to bed.

When I go inside, my room will ask me, "How did you sleep?", knowing all along that I haven't, that I sat and lie awake all night and relived every memory I could, hating every second but trying to identify which ones feel like my own. The issue with opening that can of worms, though, is that once you start, there is no stopping them until they run their course.

I wish I had the time to grieve all the memories I don't have. My itemized list tells me that's most of my childhood. But for now, I need to go inside. I'm awake, so I might as well make use of it while this paralysis lasts.

8:46 am. It took me exactly ten minutes to write this out. I'm not going to worry about how the number of memories I have from the first decade of my life amounts to less than that. But picking up 10 things in the kitchen? That, I can do. And I won't forget to greet the birds & wish them good day, especially that starling. It's hardly its own fault that it ended up on the wrong continent. It's 8:46 am. Everything will be okay.