Simone

Winter is over, but there’s still snirt everywhere.

For those unaware, or lucky enough to live somewhere snow isn’t a thing, snirt is the combination of snow and dirt that accumulates on curbs and in parking lots during winter months, miraculously remaining through mid-April. Sometimes trash and sticks end up in it, too, and when the snow finally does melt, an unsightly patch of dirt is left on the ground which doesn’t go away until April showers have brought May flowers. (Side note: I had always thought my mother coined the term snirt, but today I found out Penelope McWhiskers defined it on Urban Dictionary in 2003, so I feel a little bit lied to.)

Snirt is a complete nuisance to me. While it may not always be reflected in my running mascara or mismatched clothing, I am a very tidy person. I hate snirt. Whenever I see it I want to shovel it all up into a garbage can so it can be taken to a landfill 30 miles away where I won’t have to think about it, and then power wash the hell out of whatever ground it was lying on. Being the over-analytical angsty teen that I am, I have to think, is there more to this passionate hatred than aesthetics? What does snirt really mean for me?

Snirt is leftovers. After a snow-plow operator organizes all the precipitation into a pile, most of it melts until there’s another cold snap and the remaining snow freezes and gets dirtied. And it NEVER goes away. Like my feelings from the past. At some point I reach the height of a feeling, and then those feelings slowly fade. But some amount will always stay, and remind me why I can’t talk to this person, or do this thing when I’m at a party. And maybe that’s why I’ve been chasing after the same boy since I was 12, and still have to use baby wipes whenever I use the bathroom.

Hilary Duff’s “Come Clean” makes a lot more sense now. If the rain falls down, not only will it wake my dream/wash away my sanity, but the snirt will melt, and (hopefully) I’ll stop being so metaphorical. ♦