Lilly

The parade is bright and beautiful and everything I imagined. Float after float goes by—radio stations blasting music, clothing companies on publicity stunts, LGBTQ+ organizations in full pride attire. Walkers fling strands of beads and wristbands into the crowd, hands going up at lightning speed to pluck them out of the sky. “FREE HUGS,” someone has Sharpied across their collarbones. Behind us people shoulder through the swarm with armfuls of T-shirts and flags and bracelets, shouting to be heard through the din, more focused on selling their wares than the spectacle going by in the road. But they’re as much a part of things as everyone else is. They’re another splotch of rainbow in the whirlwind of color that has taken over the city.

I’m not good around that many people. By the time the parade is over I’m about ready to burst, and we still have hours of elbowing our way through crowds ahead of us. But it’s still good. At the end of the day I’ve walked more than eight miles and drunk what feels like gallons of overpriced water from convenience stores and pop-up stands along the route. I’m sunburned but not sorry for it. The sunset on the two-hour drive home looks like the parade all over again.

What worries me, later, is how easy it is for those colors to fade in my memory. Because now, at home, it feels like I just woke up and the last two days were just some fever dream, swallowed up neat by the immediacy of reality. It feels wrong to complain about going to work, going back to my usual routine, but an interruption like that is hard to deny. Two days of doing more walking than eating and now I can’t stomach breakfast without nausea eating away at my gut. I’m so tired that my contacts sting my eyes and I can hardly focus, barely enough fight in me to figure out what I need to wear today. And maybe these are all just metaphors for depression resurgent, because Pride was beautiful but I didn’t really feel like a part of it, and that didn’t really hit me until after I made it home. I don’t really feel like I’m part of much at all right now. But I’ll get through it. I’ll go to work and smile blandly at customers and then I’ll come home and I’ll be able to sleep again. Right now that’s enough of a reward. ♦