This is part of my Fiction Friday series.
Sometimes I forget myself.
I forget that I’m often lonely and frequently sad. I forget that I’m at least 20 pounds overweight. I forget that I no longer dye my hair just to do “something different” and now do so out of the obsessive necessity to cover my gray hairs. I forget that I hate my job and that at this point it’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever have children. I forget that the apartment is a mess and that I have too much credit card debt.
Sometimes I can forget all that and have some fun.
Last night was one of those nights.
Last night I had fun in spite of myself. I was helped along by a few cocktails that hid their high alcohol content behind candy-like flavors. I was also helped along by the friends who hounded me to go out. Last night I laughed loudly and danced awkwardly. Last night I didn’t look at the time until it was so late that I said, “Oh, shit! I’d better go.”
This morning I remembered myself again.
I woke up tired with a thud of a headache and mouth full of regret. Make up couldn’t hide the darkness below my eyes. None of the clothes that I tried on then left rejected on the bed could adequately hide my increasingly fat body.
An alert on my phone told me that Kelly had shared pictures from last night. I hesitated to click, but when I did I stared at each image of me for a minute at time, running my thumb over the glass of the screen. I saw myself smiling and laughing and dancing.
I looked great.
Perhaps even beautiful.
This morning I looked at those pictures from last night and thought to myself,
“I wish I looked like that in real life.”
Then I went in search of a large, bitter coffee.
Embed from Getty Images
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Kim Z. Dale 