The Things I Choose by Hallie Dyer

I carry a lot of things around all the time, but it’s not always just

Carry,

Carry,

Carry.

I carry and tote and lug and haul and cart and push and pull because the weight changes from time to time. Some things I carry, and some things I leave by the wayside.

Sometimes, my mind weighs a ton. People kill me, and sometimes, I’m dead, and that’s heavy. Sometimes I carry things that don’t weigh anything at all, like my pink dollhouse and tea parties and Christmas mornings.

There are things that I pick up on my travels that make up a significant part of my load, and I love nothing more than carrying them. Some things I pick up aren’t so fun to haul around, but I carry them anyway.

I can choose the things I want to carry.

A long time from now, after my parents are gone and my siblings and I have grown old, I can sit on the blue carpet my old room and hear my Dad reading to my little brother downstairs. I can see my 15-year-old hands writing in the green notebook that my aunt gave me about things that probably won’t make much sense when I’m that old. I can go back farther than that. I can taste watermelon and spit the seeds into the garden so that next spring new ones will grow. Momma said it would work and it did. I can go back as far as I’d like as many times as I’d like, because those are things I can carry anytime I want to.

Anytime I want to I can pick up the night when I was six or seven and I wanted to run away from home. I should have been asleep, but instead of yelling at me or forcing me to go to bed, my Dad took me to a gas station and bought me a red slushie. He told me that mommies and daddies need their babies and I was his baby so please don’t leave. I decided to stay. My dad let me think that if I wanted to leave I certainly could decide to do so, and he let me make the decision on my own. He even generously offered to help me set up a tent in the backyard as my new residence. He let me decide to stay home. I can always carry that.

I got an anonymous valentine in the third grade. I’m glad I never found out who sent it. I can carry that excitement and quiet admiration for whoever had the guts to slip it into my red heart-shaped valentine box. Someone liked me. I can carry that.

When I was little I used to wake up and walk into the kitchen in the house where I used to live. My mom would always be there making breakfast or cleaning. I never remember seeing her walk in there, but she was there every morning like she was waiting just for me. I can carry that.

I can carry the laughs and hugs of my grandmother. She smelled like peppermints and her lavender soap when she came to the door to let me in. There was a tree that my sister and I played under at her house.

I was her favorite.

Sometimes I carry the pain of knowing that she’s gone.

I can carry the excitement of knowing that she’ll be with me forever.

Death. That’s another thing I can carry. Of course when I do carry it, it isn’t very heavy. When you’re 15, you’re going to live forever, but I know that when death becomes more of a reality it may be a pretty heavy thing to walk around with. It crushes some people. When it comes too soon people have to haul it like a sack of lead, because death talks to you, and when it’s about to get you, it tells you its coming soon.

But right now, I choose to carry immortality.

I carry a rubber band for when my hair falls in my eyes, and I choose to carry a little courage, for when my feelings fall in my eyes. Sometimes I can carry a little blindness, because you shouldn’t always look before you leap. Sometimes I carry persistence for when I don’t look, and I leap, and I fall. Falling isn’t always bad. Sometimes you need that smack to wake you up and help you feel. Life wouldn’t be so grand if it didn’t get crummy once in a while.

When everything is going wrong and my load seems too heavy to carry, I move things around a little, shift the weight over to the other shoulder, and keep going. The longer you walk and the harder you try, the lighter and brighter things seem to get. After a while the bad things get a little easier to put down and walk away from. When you are able to do that, you forget not to trust people, forget to look for the down side, forget to cry, because you get stronger. Your capacity to carry grows and no matter how heavy things get, they won’t be as heavy as they used to be. I have to learn, everyone has to learn how to choose what to carry and what drop.

Some things you gotta pick up and hold on to with all you’ve got. The things that give you strength and confidence and warmth, choose those. You have to carry those things just to be able to go on carrying. Sometimes though, sometimes, you have to pass something by without picking it up and taking it along. The things that slow you down, the things that weight instead of anchor, don’t take those with you. Sometimes you just have to keep carrying and toting and lugging and hauling and carting and pushing and pulling the things you choose, and you have to choose the things you want to walk with forever.