PUBLISHED July 25, 2012

Six Hours from Now I’ll Wish I Got More Sleep

X had suddenly stumbled into strange territory. She sat, in a bed that was not hers, typing, on a computer that was not hers, with wet hair, from shampoo and a shower that was not hers, encased in a over-sized T, that was not hers.

But she felt at home. When she interacted with something, touched it, used it or opened up to it, she owned it. Which may or may not have been the cause for both her tendency to indefinitely borrow things she really liked and to become incredibly possessive with the people she loved. Growing up she had tooth-brushes in at least five different places around Pittsburgh. Clothes had been lost for months only to show up in the bottom of someone across town’s hamper. Not much had changed.

She liked how each place she stayed felt like a different version of a life that could have been. The room she was in now had new, polished hardwood floors and a bathroom the size of her own room at her own house. She liked to imagine, as she would in hotel rooms from time to time or when driving other people’s cars, that they were hers and see how each new environment could produce another facet of herself she never knew about.

She pondered a few things: Vanity and God.

Guiltily, she had lost touch with God recently. They had a lot to catch up on. Where once she felt the ever present safety of something divine looking after her, she unfortunately acknowledged that her fate was in her own hands more than she would really like it to be.

Which didn’t stop her from thinking she looked really kick ass from time to time. Tonight, she stared herself down in the mirror. Partially with wonderment, to think “that is my face….that is my fucking face…this is what everyone sees when they look at me…I am somewhere in here” and partially to give herself the sort of smile saved for a really cute stranger. Just to make herself feel special to herself, because you are your most important person.

If people were considered vain for “thinkin the song is about you” then guilty she was. Songs were always about her.

But it sucked to think that a girl with an overdose of outward self-confidence could be considered vain because she was in fact a fan of herself. She imagined countless girls all going to bed with thoughts of what they would do the next day to make themselves look better, smell better, be a better catch for their dream guy. There was a point in her early 20s, also known as right now, that she understood she could never be anyone but who she was. Trying to go against her own current would lead to inner conflict that would lead to her being her own worst enemy that would, eventually, lead to depression. And fucking depression sucks.

Because it gives you wrinkles.

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