Ghosts of Autumns Past
by Tracie Adams
[this is the third in the three part series–
read A Life in Seasons from the beginning]
Ghosts of Autumns Past
I woke up this morning with the sensation of falling. Not a startling jolt, but a gentle drifting down, down, down. Like the yellowed leaves of tulip poplars outside my window, weightless and free to wander without limits, landing softly without a sound. I have not always felt this way. But things have changed. It has been over a decade since I flew into a rage, even longer since I have smashed anything. I can ride in elevators and stand in the crowded subway without having a panic attack. My kids can wreck the living room, building forts with pillows and blankets, and I just breathe through the tightness in my chest at the sight of chaos. I step over the wreckage on my way to the kitchen to scramble the eggs, calling out spelling words to my youngest while I pack everyone’s favorite sandwiches for lunch.
The nightmares are gone, not replaced with dreams of poppy fields or soaring birds, more like nothingness, an absence that doesn’t crush me. When I hear a marching band or smell Brunswick stew cooking over a fire, I don’t feel like crying like I used to. It doesn’t hurt. It feels like nothing, nothing at all. I don’t waste my thoughts on all the regrets, the deficits and losses, the not-enoughs. I barely remember the screams, the crashes, the bruises, the pleading. There’s no haunting of ghostly memories of a life teetering on the edge of danger. Now I just keep moving forward, taking the next safe step, doing the next right thing. And breathing. Lots of breathing.
I’m no longer caught between two worlds, trapped in time, wrestling with myself. I am a mother, so it is their world now, not mine, and that’s all that really matters. I fold the laundry, I cook the meals, I check the homework and sign the permission slips, I read the bedtime stories, and I say the prayers. If it hurts, I do not feel it. If it’s sad, I do not grieve it. Apathy is the new depression. I just keep falling, floating, flying through the days, the years.
“Mommy, did you see me? I did a cartwheel!” My daughter’s face is full of hope.
“Yes, I see you. Mommy sees you,” I tell her as I watch her tumble over and over.
When the carousel at the state fair carries my giggling daughters round and round, I do not mourn dreams I never dreamed or thoughts that never grew up into actions. I just watch them ride. And if I find myself wandering the desolate hallways in my mind, I just grab hold of that thread of thought, following it out of the labyrinth. And there I am, right back where I started, right where I left off.
Autumn’s show of muted colors and cooler temperatures speak of a job well done, a soft place to land after a long, hot summer. The sun is a cracked yolk spreading across the horizon, a golden center flipped and suspended in clouds. I reach out to touch it, to hold it, but it slips through the fingers of my outstretched hands. Amber, copper, and honey melt in the distance. My oldest son comes to take my hand, and together we watch, and we listen to the squeals of laughter as the girls go around. When he sees me twirling my hair, he asks me why I am sad. I tell him I’m not sad, but he doesn’t look convinced. I stand completely still as everything rotates, always returning to me.
I don’t think about the words I never spoke, the friends I never made, the dreams I never dreamed. And it does not hurt to smell the cotton candy, to hear the marching band, or watch the sunset. It doesn’t feel like anything at all. As the pink and purple horses go up and down, I smile and wave at the girls, and they wave back on each rotation like it is the first time.
Back to the 2025 FLASH SUITE Contest
What’s New at Defenestrationism.net
home/ Bonafides
by 
by
Our sphere