Winter Solstice
As she sat on the bench in January New Work, every day as bleak as the last, she closed her eyes and wished for a different time
To a time where warmth enveloped her, her skin tan under the glorious sun, and all she needed was a thin silk dress and flimsy sandals to get around. To a time when light wasn’t a luxury, a scarcity, flowers bloomed, and trees provided shade to delirious children, dreamy picnics, and solacious lunch breaks.
Most importantly, it took her to a time where her mind didn’t wander to death every few minutes, where she wasn’t constantly holding her breath or avoiding her next panic attack, where she wasn’t questioning or constantly solving the puzzle of life and death, where she thought freely about her ambitions, let her imagination run wild with zeal, wonder, and hope, where she spent her life worrying about life.
Where her most urgent concern was whether she’d ever get over her mediocre ex-boyfriend, if she’d ever find love or die alone. Not whether her time on Earth was up, who decided it was up, why her friends had been the chosen ones, and how she could best avoid it or at the very least, stop fearing it, and how she had come to fear flying, her most beloved pastime once upon a time. And if she would ever be able to get on a plane again, without fear and utter agony.
But the cold had taken refuge deep in her bones and no matter what she did - talking to strangers and loved ones, trying medications - some prescribed, some not, reflection or indifference, it refused to leave. July had come and gone, but her mind refused to thaw, while her heart eroded, and her anxiety made itself comfortable within her skin, among her ears, chest, and her soul.
But summer hadn’t arrived. Not for her, and she feared she wouldn’t make it through another winter.