The Bunny Followed Me Home From School Today.

12

Sometimes my mind wonders and I often think about when I was a pretty girl. The girl who believed school was a fashion show. The one who use to reside in Homewood - unloved and a bit damaged.

All my life, well these 17 years, I've listened to adults saying how the pretty, light colors like pink are happy. Not that dark colors are darkness, but they'll never be able to express happiness like yellow, they'd say. Bright,young colors associate with happiness while dark, old ones associate with unhappiness.

Those pretty pink dresses I'd where on Easter Sunday to church - the day when churches are packed with bright dresses and white shoes. Oh, how Ann loved those days where she could show off how perfect her little girl was, oblivious to reality.

That little girl wore a pink dress with green butterflies, so, of course she was happy.

In that moment, she was happy.

"Do you remember me?" Random strangers would ask.

Ann loved when her little girl got attention - little Sydney Eloise Jones. But, the day that girl became this overgrown child was the day she dreaded, that little girl had grown to wear jean pants and black blouses, cream flats and brown sandals. She wasn't little anymore, nor was she happy, so she wasn't worthy of attention, no more mom time that she loved so much.

I'd shake my head full of ribbons , no, "I remember her when she was a tiny baby." Reminding my mom, once again that I was growing up too fast. I almost feel like it shocked Ann that I'd grown up, for real this time. We weren't the same anymore.

Ann resides in Homewood.

Sydney resides in Young Gardens Psychiatric Facility.

Ann wears yellow sundresses in the fall.

Me, dark blue sets.

Melissa is unloved and damaged.

Well, me, I'm just another overgrown child, remember? - confused and crazy.

Maybe if the world of adults didn't force me to believe that happiness is always light, I'd realize that sometimes those happy colors can disguise monsters like a pink bunny, pink was just a façade masking darkness, confusing a child like me.

If only I was born three minutes earlier, was something I thought about a lot when life became life - it would have been June 23rd, instead of the 24th and there wouldn't have been a reason to celebrate, the birthday dinner would have never happened. Things would have been so different. It didn't matter what colors made happiness and which was didn't because nothing drastic happened.

I probably would have been a new person, a girl who didn't live life by 'ifs'.

But that didn't happen, so, these are the facts of today -I'm Sydney, the girl from Homewood. The girl who believes overgrown children imaginations can hold truth, just like adult expectations can be hazardous. The one who didn't have too many worries. The one who believes if she hadn't met that bunny she could have been happy her entire life.

And that's all.

Maybe I did this.

I drove myself crazy.