I See The Sky Above Me Like A Full Recovery

Fifteen years ago, I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. It was right around this time of year, actually. It started right before Valentine's Day, with some symptoms that I won't enumerate here, and ended up taking (as I recall) two months of fever, pain and fear to diagnose. I was thirteen years old at the time.

I try not define myself by negative space, but that was my childhood trauma and that was what informed my adolescence. That's what turned me into who I am today. If you think back, you'll find that moment when the ground just fell away beneath you, when you realized that Mom and Dad were not all-powerful, and that the world wouldn't stop because something shitty happened to you. I almost feel like my life was split in two at that point. There's a thirteen-year-old me, stuck forever in the fear and pain of that time, and another me that was born the day I found out what was wrong with my body and what I could do to fix it.

I can't help but remember that bifurcation each spring.

I absolutely love spring. Springtime in Oklahoma makes the rest of the year tolerable. I have yet to see anything in this world as beautiful and terrible as the sky in March, April, and May. This dark, soft grayness just hangs in the sky, blotting out the world for miles in the middle of the day and the sun, no longer the harsh and angular tormentor of the winter months, falls soft and warmly upon the deep green of cross-timber foliage. It is birth, it is strength, it is verdant and beautiful. I've never missed a springtime in Oklahoma in 28 years. I try not to dwell on the death and destruction that follows so swiftly after that plush gray curtain in the distance.

But spring has held another meaning for me for the past fifteen years. Spring and Autumn are the times when I'm most likely to fall ill now. Maybe it's allergens in the air, maybe it's the changing temperatures. Who knows? For whatever reason, these seasons come tinged with dread. Will this be the year that I lose my colon? Will this be the year that my body no longer responds to my medication? Who knows? The thing about a chronic condition is that it's, well, chronic. I will never experience a full recovery. The condition I'm in, and I'm freakin' ecstatic about my condition, is the best that I will ever get. I will never wake up and suddenly not have Crohn's Disease. There will never be a year when I see that first wall cloud off in the distance without feeling a pang of fear.

We all have trauma, and triggers that bring us back to that pain. Maybe it's the book you were reading when you found out your Grandmother had died. Maybe it's song you sang right before the car crash. Maybe it's the lotion that Buffalo Bob made you use. Who knows?

I do know that the thirteen-year-old me is utterly useless at this time of year. He's nothing but fear and self-pity. But fifteen-year-old Seth is a different story entirely. He's handling things a lot better than he used to. And he's getting better at it every year.