But I Could Not Think Of Anywhere I Would Have Rather Been To Watch It All Burn Away

The seasons here can't read calendars, and it already feels like full-blown summer. In the morning, right before nine o'clock, I walk to school and feel like I am dying. The summer here is so ostentatious, so over-the-top. The greens and blues pop and beg for attention. There is little to no reprieve from the heat. I walked out of my house at 6 PM; on my way out, I saw that our inside thermostat read 80.

Again, I'm stuck taking to the evenings to run errands in my non-climate-controlled car. I get the pleasurable muted tones of dusk, the dusty pinks and burgeoning sodium-colored lights of the city and the windows next door. Place this against a backdrop of Death Cab's newest cd, Track 7, and it starts to take my breath away. This time of day feels like a long sigh, feels like lying down after I've been on my feet, feels like my spine cracking back into place.

But I know that it will get worse, that the walks will become more unbearable, that soon enough there will be no way to escape the sticky heat. The days will be not be full enough, and the nights will not be full enough, and the summer will slip by. It will be too hot, and eventually I will start wishing it away.

Still, knowing this, I recognize that I have no concept of the misery that will come. I've felt it every year of my life, almost 23 years. I've marched it; I've hiked it; I've driven it for six years, only one of those in air conditioning, that blessed summer when the LeSabre still felt like magic, before it started falling to pieces. Before I started falling to pieces.

The human mind has an amazing ability to forget this type--and any type--of misery. I always find that I can't remember how much it hurts to have Novocaine injected into my nerves, that I have no concept of the pain I felt when I shattered my back. I can't ever remember the extremes of temperature, what it's like to be shivering and cold or how frustrating it is to sweat immediately after stepping outside the door.

Although I try to stop myself because I know it hurts too much, I look at pictures and I see the ghost of myself in them, the empty space where I should be sitting on steps. I can imagine a thousand situations, a thousand different scripts and endings where I am still there. But this is the situation, this is the script and the ending. This is the way I chose to go, and this is where I am. I have no doubt that it is better this way, but it doesn't stop the absolute stabbing hurt. It doesn't start the sobs that overcome me in therapy, the ones that come when I finally think I'm strong enough to talk about it, the ones that don't stop until I start "intellectualizing" and turn off the part of my brain that hurts.

But at the same time, I marvel at the ability to remember that misery can end. The part of me that helps me forget the August heat, if only so I can make it that far, is the same part that allows trust and openness when I have had so many reasons to remain otherwise. I notice that it is harder to get over that hump, that I don't talk as quickly or as freely as I did. I try to think more, to pay attention, to trust definitely but carefully.

I notice, too, that it feels distinctly like growing up.