By: Laura Lee Cochran 2021
I once had a yellow dress full of tiny white daisies. They circled my torso in wonderful waves that brought character to my favorite dress. It was bright and airy, made of a perfect t-shirt material that sat comfortably above my knees. It embodied cheerfulness while also showing my battle scars, of old scabs turned purple, after countless years of playing recklessly.
I wore my yellow dress as much as I could, however, it was a summer dress, giving it a small window to be showcased. Though, when summer was at its beginning stages, my yellow dress was the first to come out of the stored bag of summer garments. Freshly cleaned and ready to be worn, I faced the summer with a smile as wide as my two open arms could reach. What can I say, I loved my yellow dress.
I remember the last time I wore my yellow dress. It was at the brick house, the name my brother and I bestowed upon it now that it is no longer our home. Giving the house a name helps the two of us remember our memories based on where we lived at the time. Sometimes the houses are blurred together, but the brick house was different. It reigned as a towering colonial house of two stories, colored white but was now faded to brown on the outside. From the front you could see the two windows from upstairs, perfectly giving eyes to what seemed like a faceless house. It stood on a hill with a long gravel driveway containing tiny brown stones that moved from the bottom of the street all the way up to our garage, and to the right stood a path of stepping stones, leading to our back porch.
There, on those stepping stones, I wore my yellow dress full of tiny white daisies for the last time. I was only eight, young and free in my open backyard, yet staying close to the house I called home. The breeze blew my yellow dress this way and that. I felt elegant as my hair blew alongside it. I can smell the summer air now. The fragrance of fresh grass traveling its way through my nostrils alongside the blooming of fresh honeysuckles.
As I stood on this stepping stone, ready to step on the next, a bee came to visit the tiny daisies on my dress. As a kid, you can be so scared of the littlest things, and I was terrified of bees. Immediately my freedom was snatched away, taking the warm summer breeze alongside it. I was now a captive to this stepping stone where I stood, still, with no sudden movements. I remember holding my fists in the air near my head as if I was playing with a hula hoop.
I stood there, looking down at my yellow dress as the little bee flew near it, attempting to pollinate a printed daisy. I remember it landing. Its microscopic legs moved across my thigh as my breath shook in a fear that was festering inside of me. I stood there, waiting, waiting for the bee to realize my yellow dress did not have the daisies it required and to lash out in anger with one simple sting. I waited, watching it move closer and closer to my torso, as I calculated the time I had left to my inevitable pain. Eventually, the bee figured out I was not the flower he so desired. Instead of lashing out, he flew from my thigh and out into the distance. However, before he could come near me again, I ran from the stepping stone through my garage door and into the brick house, regardless of the fact that the bee left in peace.
After that incident, I refused to wear my yellow dress outside during the summer. It upset me how something so beautiful could attract something so daunting. The fact of the matter is, that bee had no ill intentions. It simply wanted to pollinate a flower. But my feeble little mind couldn’t see past the stinger, the potential, or the what if’s. In fact, if the bee did lash out in anger, my pain would be nothing compared to its loss of life. Bees die after they sting, and I thought I was going to anger it so much that it would give up it’s life for revenge. But, I couldn’t see that. If only I had seen that.
I look back at the yellow dress now knowing how beautiful and important to me it was. I loved that dress, but I see now that in the moment when I was scared of the bee, I subconsciously transferred that fear to my dress. I saw the connection that the beauty in my dress was the very attribute that attracted the daunting bee. And the only rational choice I could see was to hide my yellow dress.
But my yellow dress was not the culprit of this story. It didn’t do a single thing wrong. Instead, it was its beautiful self, showcasing tiny white daisies surrounded by waves of yellow. The aspect that made that beauty so scary, was the external reactions. I saw that my dress was noticed by an unsolicited bee. And the fear of that bee ever coming again was enough to put my yellow dress in the closet. How many of us put our yellow dresses in closets in fear of getting hurt again? We put up walls, we hide, we pretend, all for what? So a little bee won’t hurt us? No. We aren’t scared of the bee, we are scared of ourselves. We think we attract these things, these little bees full of rage. We dim ourselves, like I dimmed the beauty of that dress, to keep what scares us the most away.
For me, my yellow dress brought the fear of pain to my mind every time I saw it in the closet. For others, it can be the fear of rejection, abandonment, violence, and so many more things. We hide the beauty of ourselves to feel safe, but why do we protect ourselves from pain when the very protection that we do causes us the most suffering? I loved that yellow dress, and it killed me to never wear it again. I thought it was worth it. It wasn’t.
I now look back at my yellow dress and wish I did everything so differently. I wish I didn’t put it away. I wish I went out again, trying to rebuild what I had lost, instead of leaving it lost. I wish I didn't run. I wish I didn’t hide. However, I can wish all day but it doesn’t change the past. But now I know. I might have ran before, I might have hid before, but I am older now. I have learned from that moment on that stepping stone. I know what I can and can’t do, and I know that no matter what comes my way, I will not give up what I believe to be true, beautiful, and good.
Now I have a new yellow dress, one that fits my adult body and surrounds my new curves. This dress is made of a more elegant material, and falls to my shins. The dress has a longer split where my chest is, but still has the modesty I had when I was younger. This dress also has tiny white daisies, this time with orange dots in them. It’s not the same, it never will be. You can never get back what you lost in the past, but you can find something new that’s just as good, or even better.
I grew into a new yellow dress, and I refuse to lose this one. It took time to get where I am now. It took time to understand what fear did. But now, I’d like to say that I’m even more free than I ever was as my eight year old self was. I’d like to say that I’m more me than I ever have been. Although it was difficult to lose my old yellow dress, it sure does feel freeing to finally wear my new one.