Dreams about sex, but not the good kind.
I dreamed that my husband was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing with someone he shouldn’t have been doing it with. I was so distraught about it that I ended the preceding sentence with a preposition. Seriously, Morpheus. That’s the best you can do?
I barely spoke to Hot Firefighter Husband for, like, hours, because I was so skeeved out, both by the something and the someone.
“Why couldn’t it have been with Salma Hayek?” he asked.
I’m not a particularly envious person. I trust Husband implicitly. Plus, he has two full-jobs, three kids, and an addiction to election coverage and sports. If he was going to do something like that, I’d actually have to carve out some time on his calendar first.
But when my days blend together in a jumble of fitness classes, peanut butter sandwiches, dog poop, and wiping the ever-present pee puddles out of the kids’ bathroom, I start looking at myself differently. I stop showering after every workout to the gym, because what’s the point? I wear the same comfortable yoga pants every day, because who cares? I don’t get my eyebrows waxed, because who’s looking? Just my sister, who eagerly points out all my flaws. But SCORE! She lives 3,000 miles away.
Inevitably, though, the other person who’s looking is me. Sometimes I see my reflection and wonder whether Husband still sees the beauty I once was. Does he remember my eyes before they were framed by crow’s feet? Will he always love the way I look in purple?
And when did I become so self-conscious about my looks?
The Tyrant, now all of 6, isn’t old enough to be weighed down by such insecurities. She marches off to the bus stop each morning with sleep marks on her face, hair unbrushed, and mis-matched clothes. Sometimes she resembles a Ukrainian refugee. But damn, she looks good, brightening every molecule she encounters with a brilliant smile and breathless anticipation for what the day holds.
Now that I think about it, that’s what Husband found irresistible about me in the first place – my smile, my joy, my irrepressibility.
This morning, he tried to kiss me goodbye as I was writing checks for a bunch of overdue school-related crap, and I brushed him away like he was a mosquito. Later, at the gym, I greeted everyone with exuberance and enthusiasm, and I understood suddenly that I had been giving my best self away to strangers. They were getting my smiles; they were catching my joy.
Poor Hot Firefighter Husband has been stuck with the dregs of me – the tepid, stale remnants of my essence.
So I have made an eyebrow waxing appointment. I’m going to take a shower today, and wear some real clothes. And when I visit Husband at work, I’m going to smile and act happy, and let him kiss me hello and goodbye. I think if I do all that, we’ll both think I look a little beautiful.
And tonight, if strange illicit scenery invades my slumber again, Salma Hayek is going to be involved. That way, frankly, I can enjoy the dream, too. SCORE!
“We’re more valuable broken.” Stephanie Kallos “Broken for You”
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled. Marjory Williams “The Velveteen Rabbit”
I know you only through what you write. And I cannot see any “crows feet”. Always remember, you are not the person in the mirror. You are the person in HFH’s dreams, not YOUR dreams!
What an AWESOMELY appropriate excerpt! Thank you, Richard, for making my day. : }
I was surprised that you were white. The only black family in our suburb of Chicago in the 50′s were named Booker. George was a lawyer; who had ason George; his father and brother were John and they had a Construction Co.. They had many of the sidewalks stamped with their name. they also had two sisters Leila and Lucy, who took care of little George. so, your name brought back memories of my childhood
Eleanor, how interesting! I’ve actually never met another (unrelated) Booker. Thanks for reading….my sister lives in Chicago. Brrrr.