Sunlight

March 14th. Nope, that didn’t feel right. March 12th? It couldn’t already be March again, it was just March two months ago. Wasn’t it? June tossed her pencil at the desk angrily, and threw herself into bed, enveloping herself into a cocoon in the blankets around her. 

Outside the window, the trees waved hello to her, but she wasn’t paying attention. The tops of houses were nestled cozily together, and a few cars wizzed down the street every now and then. A cool spring breeze whooshed in the smell of oncoming rain and tossed the curtains around like rag dolls. The desk sitting in front of the window was cluttered with a rainbow array of mugs printed with flowers and inspirational sayings, and papers with doodles of the sun had coffee rings staining them. Below the desk was a pile of fluffy socks, flipped inside out half of the time and discarded for favor of the feeling of  bare feet on the cold floor. Towards the bed was a path made of a year's worth of sweaters, novelty tee-shirts with cringy sayings on them, sweatpants with stars down the legs. A pile of cardboard boxes stood a mile high near the door, needing to be taken out and recycled but instead creating a barricade locking everything into the room. Scattered online purchases, some still in bags, crowded the small bedside table along with books and half-empty plastic water bottles. The TV sitting on the dresser mumbled the news quietly, and then started humming a tune about a fantastic new dishwasher. 

June had been hiding from the mess under the covers for a while. Not only the mess in the tiny room, but the mess in the outside world, too. Things used to seem so simple, but now June felt lost in the wave of things going on around her. 

A year ago, June was a perfectionist. Up at 6am every morning to straighten down every messy piece of blonde hair that stuck out in different directions and to pick out matching socks that would peek out from the tops of her sensible shoes. She’d head out to an 8:00 class, and she'd get there 10 minutes early so she could discuss the homework with someone before class started. She pulled all-nighters in the library with her friends before finals, color-coding homemade study guides and spending too much money on Starbucks so they could stay up later and laugh until their sides hurt. She went on spring break trips, volunteered at the local nursing home, and wandered Target when she was bored. She complained about not wanting to go back to school after every break, she joked about how there were people she never wanted to see again from her classes. She took most things for granted. 

The afterglow of last spring stuck to June’s bones like honey. Funeral flowers were still drying on the wall, and a colorful array of masks were hanging up on the key rack. Nothing had felt the same since then. The fact that it was March again felt like it was taunting her. The unproductive routine was worn out, but she felt stuck. Every single day felt like it was repeating itself, but with a new thing to clean or another project she would procrastinate about. The window rushed in another breeze, and June wanted to bottle up the smell of that oncoming rain outside the window. 

It made her feel alive for a moment, just a second of bliss. Sure, it had been a year. But this rain? This rain made it all feel like the wait for March was worth it, because something new had to be coming if they had made it back to where it all began. Distant thunder grumbled, and a flash of lightning lit up the sky. Running over to the window, she heaved it shut before sprinkles of rain started to fall quietly, tapping on the windowpane. The thunder rumbled, and the rain was heavy, tossing and turning in the wind, and creating a symphony of sounds on the roof. After staring at the scene laid out in front of her, she walked over to the closet. 

The prom dress she never wore hung loosely in the back, golden shimmer dancing in the light it hadn’t seen since last year. The layers of tulle squished though the closet door, sending a wave of glitter through the air and hitting the floor gracefully. Tugging off her sweatshirt and throwing it at the bed, June pulled on the dress. The sky outside was black now, but when she opened the front door, the chaos of the storm felt less daunting. 

Her bare feet hit the cold pavement before she even realized she was already out to the middle of the street. 

There was lightning, but for the first time in her life, she wasn’t scared of the what-if. Looking up at the rumbling sky, June felt the weight of the world melt off of her shoulders. 

The prom she missed melted into the grass, the graduation she never got splashed away into a puddle. The things she never did but always wanted to do, they just evaporated into the clouds.

It felt like every ounce of anger June had about everything she had lost was boiling off of her skin. Screaming her grievances at the sky, it only rained harder, thunder cracked louder, and it felt like the earth was upset too. Upset about losing her job, about losing music, losing sanity, losing faith in humanity as a whole. June was tired of forgetting what day it was. June was tired of running through a carbon copy of an old worn out routine. 

So here she was. Laying on her back, looking up at the storming sky. Waiting for the sun to come out again. 

The last year had been a storm for June. Throwing off her entire trajectory of life, her entire idea of a certain future ahead of her. The storm had completely consumed her. And she was still here, sitting in the storm. 

But at least now she was looking for the sunlight again.