deb, I did get it. I thought I responded, but my memory is a sieve these days.

eta...

I haven't read it, I just thought I'd responded to receiving it. Thank you very much for sending it. I'm excited to start it.

Two-Way Mirror

It’s not that you don’t or wouldn’t know who I am.
It’s that you choose not to.
You choose to know the me you’ve developed in your mind.
Put together from pieces of memories and events that have almost nothing to do with who I am now.
Or you put them in the wrong place.
The salt on the cake was about wondering what salt tastes like on cake. I wasn’t a jealous girl.
We have both grown; yet, you still don’t recognize that I am me.
Then again, it’s hard for me to see that I’m not you, Mom.

Damn. I'm loving this challenge.

I love it too, but that was about my sixty billionth attempt at something that didn't sound like a 14 year old being angsty.

Parker says, "Teenagers don't have the patent on angst." and they don't but I just couldn't get anything good. This, I'm mildly happy with. Not my best, but I got something I actually wasn't ashamed to share.

Well, mine was only tangentially about being a teenager - as in, I happened to be when when the core thing was going on. But that's completely not what mine was about.

Plenty of angst available as a heartbroken "loved and lost", you know?

Oh yeah, I know. I, myself, just couldn't past the crappy angst.

Crappy Angst. Sounds like a band name.

Mine's a little more about breaking out than fitting in.
Not the type(F2f Shopping, 2003)

I’m not the type to wear a blouse that shows my shape. Not the type to purposely make a spectacle of myself, and definitely not the type to court the camera. I put the pleather pants back three times before I got out of the store with them. Then I bought them because they were so “not-me” that it was like screaming “Fire” in a crowded closet.Anything modest, sweet, or “You could wear this anywhere” got put back. I have tons of it at home. Sometimes I am the type: A bookish liberal turned Raymond Chandler blonde, with the power to make smart people get a little stupid.Poison in a C-cup. You just wouldn’t recognize me.

raises glass of "FOAD, Conformist world!" to internet wife #1

You'd Hardly Recognize me

I pass you on the street, marvel at your porcelain skin and coltish bare legs beneath the miniskirt, and shudder at what lies ahead of you. I want to take you aside and pat your hands, stroke your pretty hair and gaze into those wide, frightened eyes while I soothe you with assurances that you will be strong, you'll do well in crises, you'll learn self-discipline to temper your compassion.

Perhaps I could steer you gently away from disasters, and toward the difficult but more rewarding path. I could change things for us both, if I had the chance, if you had the courage.

20th Reunion Committee Meeting:

Now: I look younger than my age, Maureen looks older, and Laurie looks exactly like she should at three years shy of forty.

Then: I was obese, weepy and slovenly. Maureen was a brassy, beautiful bitch. Laurie? Laurie was popular for all the right reasons.

Now: My body is smaller, my skin is tougher; I dress to be seen. Maureen's perfect smile is kinder, and the crow's feet and laugh lines are far more beautiful than cheerleader perfection. Laurie is Laurie, and while Maureen and I blink at each other in confusion for twenty minutes, Laurie knows us at once.