Mint Green

Mint green. That's not the right name but that's what I call it. I saw a woman on television with a coat that reminded me. It wasn't mint green, but that's what I call it. I can't see the color truly, because before I can categorize it, I'm inhabiting a different space and time in less than a split second.

Where is it? What went on there? It was not a happy place, not a place for any child to be. I don't know who else was there, but there was someone. I'm too frightened to enter into that moment and define the color. I call it mint green.

I don't want to know. It's been so long since a lost terrifying moment arose from nowhere, spinning back in time. There are predictable triggers for predictable pasts. The way the sun shines in a room. Picking up a stick in the yard. These things shove me back into long ago that seems like right now. But mint green. That's something new.

Having entered that space and time for less than a split second, several times now, there will be no stopping it. Whether I ever remember the place or what went on there, mint green will always invite a flashback.

That's how trauma goes.

I was going somewhere with that sentence, but before I could finish, I was numb. Magically, I'm dissociated. Of course, that's how trauma is, too.