Brey Willows

Card 14, Writing Down the Bones: What did you bring? What did you drag along?

Sexy underwear and hope, I suppose. Those two things came with us on our last trip, but neither ever made it out of the drawer.

Have I told you we we don’t have mirrors in our house? I mean, we have one regular one in the bathroom. But there aren’t any others because if I catch sight of myself, I head straight down the rabbit hole to hell (what circle is reserved for those who can’t stand the image they see of themselves? Is it nothing but mirrors?)

But I think, maybe today I’ll get over that and allow for a moment of self-confidence. And then I put it on and look like a potato-gonk in nice underwear, and off it goes, replaced with the basics hidden under baggy sweatshirts and whatever else can cover me from head to toe.

This is what I drag along with me wherever I go, wherever I am. This deep, unbreakable, unshakeable feeling that I am so ugly and dumpy I can’t possibly be attractive or worth a second glance, and I don’t understand why my wife doesn’t see what I do.

And yet, I will keep traveling with sexy underwear and hope, because hope is the one thing we can’t live without, and sometimes, every once in a while, we find it in Pandora’s box and give it a little fondle. It fills us up, just for a second, and the world is brighter.

Maybe one day I’ll hold onto it longer.