“The summer after I turned sixteen, fireflies danced in the open field across the road from my…”
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The summer after I turned sixteen, fireflies danced in the open field across the road from my parents’ house. I went to watch them with my family, watched how the lights flickered and darted and moved in unknowable patterns. Watching them felt like some kind of magic, like I was witnessing something that would bring on something more.
A month later I was dating my first boyfriend. He asked me out on the Fourth of July, and on our first date we walked along the old railroad tracks that ran through our hometown. I wore my favorite skirt and was too shy to try to hold his hand. By the following summer I had written at least a dozen poems about him and was certain bits of the sky had fallen to color his eyes.
The summer after I turned twenty, fireflies once again flooded the fields across from my parents’ house. I’d see them while driving aimlessly around town with a friend, and I felt something in my veins pulse in the same rhythm as the lights. I could feel something coming.
That summer I was with my first love. They were the first person to say they loved me and the first one I said I loved. They said they’d marry me and probably would have if the timing had been right. We were a whirlwind of promises and love letters and trying to fit lifetimes into four months.
In a little under a month I’ll turn twenty-three, and I’ve seen fireflies blinking in the dusk while I drive home from work. They wink at me as I pass by. My skin feels tight with the awareness of something on its way, and I’m almost afraid of what comes next.
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– Here’s to a Summer to Remember, C.D. (chickadeeburns)
Reposted from http://ift.tt/2t2tQbr.
