you too?

Somewhere on the internet there is a picture of me.
There’s a picture of Heather.

We are sitting in a window, backlit, quasi faceless. It’s a Saturday afternoon, sometime after noon, sometime prior to 2003, definitely before we were married, before we had kids, before we had any idea that someday, someday years later, one or both of us at varying times, would miss – randomly yet intensely – the other.


We are smiling, and I think we meant it. We didn’t stay long that day. We drank until we ate, because eating was, and still is I suspect, the kiss of death for Heather.

I know I slept at her house the night before, and likely we talked late, nonsensically/unrealistically about what we wished for.

She was in love with (meh... longing for) Jon C and I was rebounding in and/or out of a relationship with a man so impactless that to this day, I forget we dated save for the fact that he sweated copiously during unmemorable sex and his best friend was likely my soul mate.

It wasn’t much later that she met her husband, and years later, I met mine.

As I walked through my house tonight, upstairs from laundry, leaning to change the trash liner, promising myself to diet tomorrow, I wondered how it is that I can’t move forward. That I have no dreams, no plans, no promises to make or to keep to myself. That I exist without wanting anything, yet clearly I’m wanting for something. I contemplated what I would do if I could do anything.
And stumbled.
And stopped.
Nothing.
Not a single dream.

I heard in the background the strains to Hey, Soul Sista, somehow attached to a blog that somehow stumbled onto mine. The mommy anthem of 2010. I swiveled towards the refrigerator and shimmied. Meringue. Triple step swing. I opened the door thirsty and reached for the water. I need to drink more I thought and shimmied again. Finding rhythm. Finding the beat,. I moved forward, back. Rotated my shoulders. Swung my hands. It felt like dancing. I might have been dancing.

I glanced at the window to see that the shades were drawn, then at the doorway that my husband wasn’t in. I bumped again, la la la...hips don’t lie. I used to be cute. I used to dance. I wonder if I still do? Dance that is. I turned to the refrigerator and sought my reflection in the write-on calendar. And saw a large formless shadow.
Moving slowly and out of breath.

This is not my beautiful wife, this is not my beautiful house.
This can not be who I am meant to be.

The music changed.
It’s a Beautiful Day.
I remember hating the song.
I wonder if time changed that for me.
Pauses.
Listen.

Nope, hate the song.

But I remember the year it was popular.
And I remember having drinks that day.

And then I remembered who I was back then.
I trolled the website.
Found the musician.
Searched his archives.
And there it was.

I looked again.
I remember that day.
I was thinner.
Childless.

Lonely for where I'd be.
Hopeless.
Hopeful.

Would that I could flash forward and tell myself to lighten up.
Would that I could flash back and live it up.

Was I happier then?
No fucking way.
Although that’s not saying much when you're fat, your shoulder is inflamed, your rotated ankle still swoll, your dental bridge sore, and your head aching from dehydration and lack of sleep.
So tomorrow I’ll start at the gym again.

And tomorrow I will try to remember that life passes by.
Quickly.
So fucking quickly.
And it’s time to stop feeling sorry for myself.
And get crackin once again.
Bootstraps don't fail me now.