Wednesday, May 29, 2013

All He Can Eat

We interrupt the stitches for just a moment...

When I was younger I was convinced no one would love me or find me attractive. I was too skinny and much too smart and very unwilling to play dumb. When someone had a crush on me (of all people!) it left me confused. What, oh what, did they see?

I'd like to tell you I grew out of it. But of course, no one does. I gained a little weight, I lost some weight, I gave up the battle with my hair, I got older, I got rid of my glasses, I became diabetic. The last is the most troubling. Surely, I cannot be a whole person if parts of me no longer function. And you can't tell by looking at me that I have an incurable illness so often I feel like I'm lying, pretending, hiding the part of me, the real, ugly me, in the dark where no one will notice I don't work properly.

So now when a man pays attention, my first instinct is to blush. Then I'm like, what? who? me? Really, me? No! Then I fumble my way through flirting back. Because I should notice whatever attention comes my way. I'm getting old here. Maybe there's not much else coming. Maybe I should embrace whatever the wild wind brings and go out with a bang. That would be so much better than dying forgotten in the dark with the out-of-order, broken down, too costly to repair things.

He likes my hair. My hair. I bumped my head on the humming bird feeder this afternoon and spilled sugar-water all over myself. I had a sticky mop head of stingy hair. And you like it? Yeah, I showered before work, but clumsy me? Really?

He said so. He likes my hair. Then he said he likes other things. He said he didn't know where to start because I was like a buffet.

I should have asked if he liked to nibble.

No comments: