Spending most of my days at home, I am sans makeup, hair in a bun, wearing slippers and yoga pants. When I head out to lunch with a friend or an appointment, I rig up all the ropes and pulleys necessary to make me palatable for public consumption.
These outings usually last a few hours and before I know it I am back in my house, all dressed up with no place to go. My friends have to return to work and are probably envious watching me walk up the steps of my residence. I would have felt the same way when I was in the daily grind. But now the jealousy is completely mutual in reverse. Putting my key in its hole, no matter how much fun I have had, I feel like Cinderella after the ball. I may not be making the fire at the hands of my evil stepmother, but I am transported back to a solitary world, dramatically different than the life I once led outside the walls of my own castle. I am never so lonely as when I close the front door behind me. The ball is over and it’s time to change back into, if not a pumpkin, a squashed version of myself, living a smaller life than I ever could have imagined before I woke up one morning to darkness.
Although the time at home since that day has been necessary to heal and discover what’s next for me, it is not how my story ends. As I undress and dress into my comfy clothes again I find them less comfortable. It’s time for me to change not only my clothes but my life. There is no fairy godmother, no magic, no prince arriving on a white horse with a glass slipper. My Charming rode in over twenty-five years ago in a red 1990 Beretta and he was definitely not carrying shoes. It’s up to me. And that’s not a fairy tale. That’s a terrifying thriller.
