The trees are blooming and I am ready to fall. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love spring; it’s my second favorite season. It’s just what is associated with spring as a high school student that I don’t like. 

Last year, I started going on walks; I pulled out my roller blades and I enjoyed the fresh air. I was able to indulge in the sweet smells of the forest and notice the buds on the trees. I saw the wildflowers popping out of the ground and I heard the frogs and birds start to sing their cheery song. 

The angry cry of the chickadees that live in the bush in my front yard, the soft trill of the robins that land on our bird feeder at the end of the cold season, the bluebirds, and Canadian geese back from the south, all of the spring diversity coming back to make the world bright. All of these birds, and I’m shut off from it. 

I sit inside wasting away the day on my computer working through homework and learning in rooms without windows. I see deer in the neighbors yard and chubby little squirrels racing on the fence as I pirouette and tendu in my sunroom. I am jealous of the animals. 

I used to be a flower, observing the natural world and taking in the shift of air. Smelling the change between winter and spring, the bitter air to the welcoming smell of spring flowers. 

The violets I used to make into perfume and jam peep out of my backyard. The pink of the spring beauties are coming out in the forest. 

I wish I could take a stroll and forget about the looming stresses that have occupied my head. I wish I could see the mayapples on my way to the biggest tree in the woods. 

I am a weed now—I barely get any sunlight, yet I am still surviving and healthy as can be. The standardized week coming up is causing a cavern in my gut. The AP tests in a month are making me doubt all I’ve learned about chemistry and English. 

But as A.A. Milne said through Eeyore, “weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.” 

I am the dandelion I loved as a child, the yellow ones and the ones of fluff, not the relentless ones I have to pull from the garden. 

I am fine being a weed for now, for maybe in 43 days I will be a flower again—ready to bloom and see the world with fresh eyes and let go of the stress that keeps me so deep into the ground. 

The flowers arise in the spring, but so do the weeds.