six months ago today!

Yesterday, I was sitting on the bus coming into school. It was the darkest, coldest part of the night (it's not morning until the sun is up) and it was just about freezing. That means sleet instead of snow. And the wind was blowing like it wanted to slice right through you. And all I had to look foward to was yet another day of school. It was completely miserable.

So I remembered. I thought about the beach in Barcelona. I remembered how it was so hot that sweat was rolling down my back. I remembered how tan I was, and how my eyes were so full of sun that they hurt. I remember my bare toes, getting sunburned and covered in dirt. My sundress floated light over my skin and stuck to the parts of my swim suit that were still wet. The top of my head was dry and hot, but the underneath layers of my hair were still damp from swimming and kept my head cool. The ice cream I was eating was freezing, and made my mouth and throat and stomach cool again. My muscles had that dizzy, lazy feeling that comes from sleeping in the sun; after the bright heat has pounded out all of the tightness. Everything in me that was stored up from the winter, everything that was cold and dull and angry, was gone. It had been rubbed loose by almost two weeks in constant sun, and washed away in the Mediterranian. I was so full of sun and salt and clean air, it felt like my edges blurred in that place, like if you walked past me, you wouldn't see me out of the corner of your eye. I was summer-possesed.

And then the bus lights flipped back on, and I was kicked out of my daydream back into the dark, loud cold. And it was ok.

That trip was like nothing I've ever known. It wasn't just a two week tour, it was a reminder that life is good and worth living, not just getting through. I learned that the world is big enough for me, and that growing up is just as intensely good as it had been intensely bad. Most importantly, I learned that the really good things are things that you don't need a place for, or a language for, or time for, and that those are the ones that last forever. If it weren't for that trip, I don't think I would know right now what to fight for, what to hope for, or what to live for.

I know it's impossible to explain how important that trip was, but I'm a writer so I'll try anyways. I talk about it because if I don't tell the stories, or write about it, then it's less real. And for a long time yet, I need it to stay real to me.