The Easter Egg Hunt

Easter makes me feel safe. I have good memories of it from my childhood. I'm struggling to make sense of things right now; trying to understand things. Come to terms with things. When nothing makes sense and things only grow more confusing, I find security in the small amount of Easter decorations I have. Those and the memories. Memories of a different time, a different place. Easter, to me, means innocence. I know the true meaning of Easter. Please don't think I am not acknowledging that, but I don't want to make this a religious post. I'd rather keep it reflective, if that's okay.

I loved when my mother dressed me up in frilly, fancy dresses and shoes that she wouldn't let me put on until the last minute. I was one of those kids who, when I got all ready to go, I'd run out into the yard and hit a mud pile head on. Or I'd try to climb a fence and get a cut and bleed all over the place. That happened, the fence, not the mud, at least once, when I was all dressed up and ready to go, and it was a mess, let me tell you. Mom yelling and wiping me down. My brother laughing from his bedroom. Me crying because I was in pain and bled all over a pretty, lacy dress.






And of course, as I got older, Easter usually coincided with spring break, which meant a week off of school! We'd dye Easter eggs and stay up late watching movies on the VCR. Even into my teen years, heck, my adult years, I got Easter baskets from Mom and Dad. It was always just a special time around the house for us, as it is for many families, I'm sure, and if your family was like mine, we kids got to drink wine spritzers (the dinner wine watered down with Seven-Up) from the fancy adult glasses. But we didn't know they were watered down. We just thought it was cool we got to use the fancy adult glasses.

The essence of spring too, that means something. Ties into it. In the spring, things are always fresh and new. People sometimes use the ringing in of a new year to turn over a new leaf or look for the new to happen in their lives. I always try to use the springtime for that, but it usually ends up being a time when I look back on things and ask myself what the heck I've done to be in such a mess and how am I going to get out of it.

When we were kids though, sometimes our parents would take us (my brother and I) over to Wright Patt for their annual Easter egg hunt. I never tried too hard to collect all the eggs I could. I just enjoyed watching all the other kids fight over them. I suppose that's because I learned my lesson at a young age; the Easter egg lesson.

I was probably four. We lived on Routzong and my bedroom window looked into the backyard. One Easter morning, my father went out into the yard and hid a bunch of eggs for my brother and I to find. I thought it harmless to look out the window to see if I could see where he hid a few of them, not really thinking that I'd even be able to recall where I saw him hiding them.

They let us loose in the yard, and sure enough, I recalled a few of the more elusive places I'd seen my father put the plastic eggs. He knew instantly that I'd watched him from my bedroom window. I didn't know, still, that I'd done anything wrong. Of course, as an adult, now, sure. Would I look out the window? No. I knew I was looking out the window when I did it. I didn't know that I'd remember where the eggs were. I didn't know how unfair it was to my brother. I didn't know that all these years later, I'd remember that day like it was yesterday and feel so bad about it.

It's funny because sometimes we look for things that have happened in our lives to try to understand ourselves better and understand why we do and say what we do and say. Every since that day, I think I subconsciously decided that it doesn't pay to do things the easy way.

I am paying for it dearly, literally today, because, since then, I have never done anything in my life the easy way. I think it's because of the Easter egg hunt when I was four. Perhaps the bunny cursed me.

Sometimes, I wish I could go back to those days; just transport myself in time. Life was so much easier. I was so much more innocent and unknowing. I guess if I close my eyes, I can go back, but then, I'd have to open my eyes back up. You always have to open your eyes back up, right? If you don't, you'll run head on into a mud pile.

On that note, I'll share with you that I do believe in the Easter Bunny. I do believe in Santa Claus. I do believe in pots of gold at the end of the rainbow. I do believe in Cupid although she's stuck my ass a good time or two. And I do believe that although I've taken the hard road to find the path I need to be on in this life, somewhere, somehow along the way, it will pay off, and not because I took the easy route. Not because I looked out my bedroom window and to see if I could spy where life was hiding all the good stuff.