Three Long Sighs...and then, Spring

The cold season doesn't fare well for cynical sentimentalists like me. I’m a warm weather girl who longs for longer days and only enjoys winter for its gifts of snow (because it’s so lovely) and its stretch of holidays (because even Scrooge couldn’t resist Christmas). But Spring is like a forgotten dream, especially for New Yorkers like me who’ve endured several years of zero transition time between a Winter’s bleak and a Summer’s humid.

Today though, today was Spring. It was one of those days that just demanded your attention-- shimmering with a warmth and brightness that was so magnetic, even flowers came out from winter hiding. Out for a walk, I felt as if I was trapped in someone else's moment, someone else's sketches of the Perfect Day, where the sky was that precise shade of blue--painted on without the blemish of a cloud. But me, I paid no mind to this rare moment, this treat from nature. Despite losing an hour, I still carved out time to be sad.

It wasn’t like I was sad about anything in particular. It was just about everything in general. Leave it to me to use a solitary Sunday as an excuse to soak in my own self-loathing. Pausing at one of my favorite local spots, this section of benches and greenery outside the Natural History Museum, I stood beneath the shadow of the Planetarium as the strains of Bob Dylan’s "You're A Big Girl Now" whispered in my ear :

A change in the weather is known to be extreme
But what's the
sense of changing horses in midstream?
I'm going out of my
mind, oh, oh,
With a pain that stops and starts
Like a
corkscrew to my heart
Ever since we've been apart.

when i was little, i believed in fairytales. i believed that happily ever after was truly the ending to all stories. and that things always worked out because I didn't know any better. years later, scarred by the realities that naturally comes with becoming adults, i've learned that Real Life is not so neat and tidy. We're all complicated packages with no simple solutions. And that while one part of our lives may be exceeding all expectations, another part may very well be falling to pieces.

my patch of sadness was one of those temporary moments of mismatched fortunes. on one hand, i'm successfully pursuing my goals, getting what I've hoped for in my professional life. but then i round a corner, and my heart is being broken by someone that was never suppose to matter in the first place. it's a trick of fate, a twist in the story. and it leaves me both bewildered and disturbed. is there a lesson i'm suppose to learn? will things ever balance out?

and before there are any answers offered up, a stream of sunlight cuts into my thoughts and suddenly i saw the world around me: rows of daffodils blooming from all corners, children squealing and chasing down birds, couples walking hand in hand. this was not someone else's day but a moment that was all my own. i took three long sighs, exhaling out my melancholy and taking in the beauty of my own imperfect situation. it was finally Spring. so i went and bought myself flowers.