This is Your Brain on Kindergarten

I don't exactly have the correct metaphor for right now. Something about having been taxiing down a runway for all these years, and suddenly feeling my heart in my throat with that first lurch against gravity as we go wheels-up. But that implies a speeding rush. Landscape blurring past. A little bit of nausea. All true, and yet...not a perfect summation.

Something involving painting myself into a corner, living in single moments without realizing that the wall behind me is about stop my wandering gait. But that feels like the wall is wholly undesirable; on the other side lies a dungeon. A pit. A Trunchbull. I know for certain that this is not the case.

Closer still: something about picking berries off a bush, plunking each bit of sweetness down on top of the pile, never realizing the bush was growing bare. I've picked all the best berries already, haven't I? The slow days and long nights and halting innocence all thins out towards the top, leaving, what? Bare branches? Thorny vines? Sunburnt leaves?

But that's not right, either. It can't be.

Surely we're just moving further into the field, finding a new sort of fruit. A low-lying shrub, maybe. Or a heavy-laden tree. A stubborn patch of brambles around a bend (occasionally). A fragrant glade on the other side (hopefully).

Because tomorrow isn't the ending of something, I tell myself with a giant helping of cliché, so much as it is another beginning.

This is what Lauren + Kindergarten does to my psyche.