Why'd you cut it

I think

My short hair makes me look younger. I know that is only because the last time my hair was so short

I was sixteen years old, that's ten years now, and my mother loved my pixie cut. It became synonymous with her definition of me, for better or worse, her oldest child. Small, soft, light. 

January 29th 2013 would have been her 54th birthday.

This was her last birthday gift to me. A copy of Colette's "The Vagabond", as she had always viewed me as such. Wandering in the grocery store as a little girl, wandering the streets of New York City as a 21 year old.

Happy Birthday Mom.

Love, for always,

Your Vagabond.

 

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Small and Awash

D'ya ever feel cognizant of how you're such a little cog
In a great, big wheel of a machine?

See, I've always felt it. I've always known I'm this little bit in a greater whole, but it took me a long while to figure out how I worked. Why I worked.

And I've been feeling slightly warped, off kilter, off my alignment. 

Which is something, I think, I've always been and felt.

And it's neither good nor bad. I place no judgement on my cog in the machine.

But that doesn't stop me from thinking; what happens if I break? 

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Life near the panic button

I was really proud of myself for blogging pseudo-regularly. They say it takes three weeks for one to attend to an actual routine. So I'll blame hubris. C'est la vie.

I suppose I could give a laundry list of December. Accepted into graduate school. Loans commence. Ran the 10k. Did quite well. Can't run half marathon. Signed up for another half marathon.

And....I fit the dress.

Strange thing, to see it fit. It did not fit me in high school. 

Stranger still to watch my dad's face at seeing a specter; half of him, half of her. Crinkly and white and blooming outwards after being trapped in a box for so long.

Strangely enough, I struggle thinking about changing it. My father's memories of his first wedding are warm and fuzzy and perfect. It was more than 20 years ago. If I change the dress- one of the last pieces of her, untouched by actual marriage and all that it was fraught with- do I change the memory? Do I dilute it in some way? It's ridiculous I know, but these are things I wonder.

Things are moving along swimmingly, but there's always the grim fiscal realities. New ones. I'm really, very, tired. I cannot work more than I do, and function. Even still, I'm wringing my hands knowing there is so much I cannot effect no matter how I scream or kick at time that doesn't care. You cannot help who you love, and sometimes, you can only help them so much. Creeping back from the edge is hard for me. I have the lackadaisical tendency to leap full out, headlong, into the fray. 

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