winter;
     1999. I'm playing in a snow drift left by the snow plow that clears the parking lot behind my house. My mother walks by, a trail of smoke evaporating behind her. I cut her off at the corner. She subtly sticks her hand into a snow bank. I ask, "Are you smoking again?" and she angrily denies it.

     2003. My best friend and I push ourselves through waist-deep snow, making up stories about fantasy creatures. When lunch ends, we are completely buried and fifteen minutes away from the school.

     2003. My mother makes drunken phone calls to relatives, sobbing about how I won't speak to her. At our arranged meeting, I accept her bribe, but refuse to sit down.

     2009. The doctor tells me that my constant back pain is caused by my spine slowly being fused together because of swollen muscles around it. I write a poem about it.

     1997. I'm Mary in a Nativity play. Our Jacob is sick, so my best friend stands in. I hiss instructions throughout the entire scene.

     2005. My entrance in the musical involves walking through the audience. I see my mother's hungry eyes staring at me from the third row. Backstage, the lead female helps me stop hyperventilating.

     2009. I go what feels like weeks without sleep. I dazedly write ennui all over the walls beside my computer.

     2008. On a solo walk with a camera, I become distracted by the lake and end up soaked, half-frozen, and laughing hysterically. Later that night, I throw up everything in my stomach. I miss four days of school.

spring;
     2004. I turn thirteen. My mother sends me yet another bribe.

     2007. I turn sixteen. On my birthday, I attempt to combine three separate groups of friends. The first retreats upstairs to Facebook, the second plays Resident Evil, and the last reciprocates my shameless flirting.

     1998. I tell my mother that I'm sad a lot of the time. I end up in a room with a man who types on his laptop while I talk. He asks repeatedly if I've been abused in any way. Later, I tell people that I threw his laptop out of a window.

     2003. I stare at the ceiling, comforted by the weight of the protective garment resting on my pelvis. The x-ray table is freezing cold.

     2006. Part of the divorce agreement, three years in the making, is that I go to a therapist. She makes me paint a plate and over-analyzes my design choices. I raise the thought that I wouldn't have this much of a problem if it were my father I weren't talking to. She has no comment.

     1991. I'm born short hours before midnight on March 16th. My mother claims to have wanted me out before St. Patrick's day so my father wouldn't have another reason to go partying.

     2007. Day after day, I find myself walking down to the lake at night. I might catch some sleep on the odd picnic bench or low-slung branch, but I never feel its effects.

     2008. I turn seventeen. My father gives me ten dollars and an e-mail telling me to clean my room.

summer;
     2008. I survive summer school. I get an 86 in the only subject I've ever failed.

     2005. I fly to Vancouver to spend a week with my best friend, who moved across the country long months before. We spend most of the time crying over the awful year we've had apart.

     1999. A counsellor at camp asks me about a bruise on my arm. She misunderstands my answer and, months later, a child services representative shows up at my house. She comments that my tears make her feel like the villain, and I sob that there is no villain.

     2004. My first serious taste of insomnia leaves me half-awake, half-asleep, half-alive.

     2003. My friends and I, craving grilled cheese sandwiches, go to my house. My mother and her new girlfriend are there, taking everything which could be in some way be tied to her side of the family. I resolutely ignore her as I butter bread.

     2006. I fly to Vancouver to spend two weeks with my best friend. We go on a road trip. We spend most of the time skipping out on sight-seeing to wander around the house, talking aloud of what it would be like if we lived there alone.

     1998. I sit down on the steps of my school and I can't get up. This sets in motion years and years of visits to the hospital, x-rays, and back massages.

autumn;
     2007. I make everything awkward by asking one of my best friends to go out with me.

     2008. I spend my one-year anniversary at a rehearsal for the musical. A well-meaning friend offers me a hug and I burst into tears while running out of the room.

     2004. My first serious taste of seasonal affective disorder leaves me mostly-drained, mostly-depressed, half-dead.

     2008. Every time I shuffle up the stairs and slump against my locker, the boy beside me sympathetically asks, "All Novembered out?" My automatic answer is a tired smile. I never get my lock open on the first try.

     2006. After months of heavy lifting for the musical, I bend over to lift something out of a box, and I can't straighten up again.

     2003. I rip apart the house, looking for the vacuum. When I ask my dad about its location, he says simply, "She took it."

     2008. I can't seem to go a day without falling asleep in my locker.