Oh, March. You are the hardest month for me when it comes to keeping my chin up. After an entire winter of dragging an army of coats and warm clothes so claustrophobic they begin to feel more substantial than the person underneath, you taunt me and tease me with these fifty-degree days. Just when I think I can’t take it anyone, a ray of sun warms my cheek. And just when I’m starting to enjoy that, an icy wind comes off the lake and whips me so stingingly that real tears of sadness roll down my reddened and ridiculous cheeks.
Well, the good thing about persistent bad things is that sometimes they kick us in the pants. I can’t take another year of you, March in Chicago. We’re getting out.
I’ve made half-assed attempts to escape before; once I saved up all my cash and vacation days and left the city for Italy for the entire month of February. My plan was to learn Italian and stay warm. Well, the first bit I could control, and pulled it off quite well, thank you very much. In fact, I was able to understand the Italian newspaper they gave us for free on the lovely Italian airplane. It told me that a freak SNOWSTORM had paralyzed the entire country, and they were in for an entire February of freezing rain. As the plane landed, I could see the lovely green of the Italian land being covered in white and ice…
I’m not going to lie, that sucked. And the last time I was almost warm in February was when I went to take care of my best friend’s effects and make sure her husband didn’t do anything drastic after she died. I took him to Nice, where the sun was indeed warm and beautiful.
But all of my half-arsed attempts to escape the Chicago chill have been weak, and therefore all melancholy.
It is time to make a change for real, for good.
March is trying to kill me with despair. But instead I shall squish out from under it, like a very determined slug escaping a garden trowel.
That little slug is deceptively determined.
Katie Stirner 