Along with the tulips and crocuses that have popped up in nearby yards, it’s hard to miss the dandelions. (As a new dog-owner, I take four walks a day, and it seems I’ve grown familiar with the location of every garbage can and stretch of lawn within a mile.)

I can’t pass a yard full of them and fail to think about when I was a child. Along with neighborhood friends, we’d pull them up and make chains out of them and then connect the ends, fashioning crowns suitable for a dance around the May Pole.

I remember feeling beautiful in my dandelion crown.

Such a simple thing. Gold and green. The blooms, if you could call them that, irregularly sized. The green stems would get tangled in my hair, and the golden buds would seem to spring out of my brown, wispy locks like small Italian lights hanging over a patio in the summer.

I felt beautiful in my dandelion crown until my mother, or some other adult whose opinion I gave a lot of weight, exclaimed,

Why would your put dandelions in you hair? They’re WEEDS!

I don’t know if it was the words themselves, or the delivery of doubt and distain that changed my attitude about this spring ritual. I stopped wearing dandelion crowns.

Years later, when I was a twenty-something year-old working girl, on Fridays after work, I would meet with a regular crowd of friends at what we referred to as a fern bar.

They had a great Happy Hour featuring half price well drinks and a complimentary buffet table (mostly cheese cubes, crudities, and pasta salads) which served as supper. Afterwards, we would go to a large room in the basement and dance.

Partnered with an outgoing guy, or with one of my gal pals, or even alone, I would dance my heart out. I really got into the music. I was entranced by the flashing lights, being young, being slightly buzzed on cheap gin.

In my movements, I’d be celebrating the idea of Friday night, when, maybe, I felt just a little more carefree than on other nights of the week.

I remember one night, a woman, who saw me unconsciously moving to the beat, came up to me and remarked, as if she was compelled to share this news, that I was SWEATING.

I stopped dancing. I stopped dancing in public.

Oh, I suppose, I might have broken this rule for a slow dance at a wedding reception, but for the most part, I went into shut down.

I was afraid of not looking acceptable when I danced I guess, or overenthusiastic, or that it was too obvious when I got over-heated, or I don’t I know exactly why.

Going into shut down — it still happens on occasion.

Just recently, someone took over a task I was doing. I wasn’t doing it wrong. I reminded myself. The action was more about this person’s need to control things than any particular failing of mine, but I found it difficult to breathe.

I was surprised; incredulous, taken aback. I wondered, How could this person do such a thing? Maybe I felt a little invisible too.

These moments of shut down, occur less and less frequently. I’m glad when I catch myself going into this mode and don’t let myself wander too far down this path.

A friend of mine frequently invokes this principle cited by several self-help gurus. Guilt is about feeling bad over something you did. Shame is about feeling bad about who you are.

I suppose some things just trigger a familiar but unnecessary feeling of shame. I try to remind myself the UNNECESSARY part of this equation. More and more often, I can.

Feeling like a princess in your dandelion crown is no small thing.