Cloudya

“I don’t miss it. I don’t miss men looking at me. It’s a relief to walk into a convenience store and walk right back out without some hangabout in sleeveless flannel leering as I leave, some muttered bit of misogyny slipping from him like a nacho-cheese burp. Now no one is rude to me, but no one is nice to me either. No one goes out of their way, not overly, not really, not the way they used to.”

- “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn

I feel like I should apologize to people I see on the street. “I’m sorry. I used to be pretty. But who has the time?”

The thing is, I see pretty mothers of babies all the time. So someone. Someone has the time. Just not me. I don’t make it a priority. I go out in $7 Target tank tops and $5 Old Navy flip flops. I pull my split ends into a lopsided ponytail. I don’t wear makeup. I wear jeans in 100 degree weather to hide my unshaven legs. I haven’t seen my wax lady in months. I miss her. My girl parts miss her. My homemade manicure from three weeks ago has chipped until its like a Rorschach test every time I wave. Look at my nails and tell me what you see. Tell me what you don’t see. Better yet, don’t look at me.

I don’t try. I don’t care. I am my own lost cause.

I used to be pretty, and that is my consolation. I wear it like a locket close to my heart. I tell myself I’ll get back there some day, but I don’t know if I mean it. Because every day I look in the mirror and throw up my hands at the way my body rounds and dimples where it used to be taut. I sigh and think how I still intend to have another baby within the next couple of years so what’s the point? What’s the point of killing myself to lose weight I’ll just put right back on? And then I put on my sunglasses so that I don’t have to see myself.

Ken is still so beautiful. He takes my breath away when I look at him. My golden boy, all tan and sleek. People used to say we looked good together. Now I feel like people look at us and wonder what he sees in me.

This isn’t the post I set out to write. But damn if things haven’t taken on a life of their own of late. Damn if I don’t like to make excuses and wallow in self pity!