When we part I walk for a while, all the way across town toward Sixth Avenue, each block a sample of upcoming seasons to walk through. The crisp first breath of winter, fire smoke followed by a shocking pocket of warmth, and then I look up, called to the sky, a lifelong reflex. It's not yet four thirty and the sun is beginning its descent, and my body responds with a tightening of dread in my chest. Dread that every evening will find me suffering from countdowns from the rest of my life. Why does this still happen to me? My body has always reacted to the sun this way, the sky and I have a private relationship that is not mine to end. What does it want from me? What is it trying to tell me? I try to do what my therapist has trained me to do, to follow the feeling to the very beginning, to when I first felt it, and identify the association. Of course it is telling me that soon it will be bedtime and I'll have to leave my mom. That soon I'll have to go to my dad's. It's telling me that the day is dying, that things are ending and all the distractions of the day are quieting, creating more space for me to worry about all the ways I have to say good-bye. But I'm not a child anymore. Can I change my associations to the sky? What if I simply decide it's the best time of the day and not the worst? I look at the sunset and tell it, You are so pretty. You don't scare me. And for a moment, it doesn't - and I feel released and in control of my feelings. Until I accidentally blink the moment away.
Little Panic by Amanda Stern