Naomi

The light from the setting sun just hit my bedroom—two neat squares on the wall opposite. It’s a specifically spring light and my favourite time of day.

This is always a reflective season for me. I get strange and nostalgic, staring intently at the sunsets and the clouds that melt like softly-coloured ice cream sundaes on the horizon. Spring is in the sky, but not down here where it is still freezing and frosty. Snow covers the roofs of the houses, patchy and placid.

It’s Good Friday, but it doesn’t feel like it. Nothing feels the same anymore. I’ve become so accustomed to years of similar patterns and returning feelings to the point that events on a calendar evoke little response from me. Christmas, birthdays, and special occasions don’t seem to matter much. Something within me has changed, though I am still not sure what. It didn’t feel right going to church like I usually do—I don’t know why. Church was open for the afternoon, and usually I just sit on a pew for five or 10 minutes. Last year I wasn’t able to do this because my toe was fucked up and I couldn’t walk. And this year I am too distracted by work and social stuff that my developing ideas of God and prayer don’t even penetrate; I am in some kind of bubble. I hate it.

I keep on thinking of people instead of ideas. Faces instead of theories. I haven’t been growing in my mind—I’ve been growing outwardly instead, reaching out to the world in an unfamiliar way. I have to remind myself to expand inside as well, to read and not just in order to tick off a list of books, but because it enriches me, like when the sun momentarily breaks through the clouds and warms my face.

I thought about turning this past year into a film, and I even wrote a scene in my head. It involved boys, and it helped me clarify events. There was a boy I didn’t particularly want, but he wanted me. And there was a boy whom I fancied the pants off and have kissed a few times, but at the same time I struggled to give a fuck, which seems contradictory, but then I am a teenage girl with mixed feelings and a lazy attitude toward the hassle of relations. And finally there was—there is—the boy who started it all, and at times I wonder, Why him? And then I realise there is no reason why, it just is. The only person I’ve ever really “loved” for whatever reason didn’t love me back.

When I lie on my bed or the floor, all I see is the sky. Right now it is blue, with patchy clouds. I’m thinking about how much hope gets invested in spring and summer. There are so many plans dreamed up, so much grass to sprawl out on. Whenever I stand up though, I catch sight of the ground and the snow. It brings me back down to earth. I wonder how much longer I will be sitting in this strange ice age, where things still don’t make much sense. ♦