don't ask

maybe it's the fact that i remember being my daughter's age. or perhaps it's that i think that we are all given second chances more than once or twice or three times to be who we think we are supposed to be. and that sometimes all those chances just add up to a line of mistakes we can't take back. whatever the reason, i find myself thinking that looking forward and up and ahead is sometimes the most painful way to live. because it means that there are things i should be doing that maybe i'm not. and that perhaps this pain means i'm doing something right. because complacency doesn't hurt.

i found a facial moisturizer that i love. for some reason, this feels like an accomplishment. as though i've unlocked a way to maintain a life of happiness and balance amid the uncertainty that sits between the couch cushions at eleven o clock at night when i'm working on a deadline for work and bryan is home later than usual and i start to wonder what would happen if he didn't come home at all and i had to explain that to our kids in the morning. and who thinks these things? why is my head full of worst case scenarios and the serrated edge of what ifs sawing away at my brain at any given time. do you ever sit in your car and think what if another car plows into the side of us as we're driving? i was never afraid of these things before. it was as if these what if situations were writing exercises and not situations that made me want to crawl behind black out curtains with a xanax and a lifetime movie.

sometimes i wonder what i want to say in the first place. in any given situation. i hear myself and my small talk to random strangers and i feel like rolling my eyes but i know they would think it was about them and it would be harder to explain that i'm rolling my eyes at my own inane ramblings. i see pictures of myself and i look so disheveled and unkempt and i realize that i'm getting too old to get away with it. i mean, we can all get away with it but maybe it wouldn't hurt to take an extra few minutes in the morning to apply some makeup for christ's sake. give myself a pedicure. get my hair cut. something. maybe i would feel a bit better about the fact that my getting older means that a certain level of maintenance is required. i'm not worried about getting older. i don't have anxiety about that. i just don't know how to do it yet. because i still feel sometimes like i have all the time in the world ahead of me to worry about such things. and that, somehow, when i'm looking back a year from now, i'll all of a sudden be someone new entirely.

i have a lot of graffiti in my head right now. and i've been trying to keep it organized. packing it and unpacking it and i know myself well enough to know that i have to gather my cans of paint and just spray in order for it to make sense. in order to feel as though i've done something. there aren't enough facial moisturizers in the world to make up for all the second chances.