She welcomes the gap in the curtains. One she might usually huff at and, annoyed at herself for not closing them properly, will dramatically get out of bed to rearrange, tutting as she goes.
She opens the windows slightly, unsure really of what she will be woken up to during the night or in the morning but for now the peacefulness is as welcome as the breeze of fresh air filling the room.
Everything else is dark and quiet.
The light coming through the curtains from street lights, the noise of distant cars, reminding her that outside of these walls life is there. And she isn't alone.
No matter how much she feels it.
She isn't alone.
After a while of feeling so sure and confident of herself she all of a sudden feels so overwhelmed.
Consumed in thoughts of self doubt and "Why am I here?" "What am I doing?" and a resentment of "Why can't you see what I am capable of?" "Why can't you appreciate all I have to give?".
She looked in the bathroom mirror. The reflection of numerous tattoos, long black claw-like pointed fingernails, dark hair. A chubby girl. She liked it. She was happy (would rather not be chubby but she made herself this way and accepts it)
This is the shell. And as life goes on she isn't sure what this shell is supposed to look like.
How it is supposed to be dressed. The colours it wears. The type of nails. The length of the hair.
Everything.
She has days when she can see herself and feel so content with "this is who I am!" but the echoes of previous voices of others and the words she has told and still tells herself make her crash down with self doubt.
She looked again in the mirror. Wondering if the reflection of numerous tattoos, long black claw-like pointed fingernails, dark hair, is what holds her back.
"Do other people not like this?" "What are they thinking of me?"
Her only "friends" are work colleagues or her cats. And even then, she questions what they think about her and her worth (other than the cats. The cats definitely love her).
She leaves work and goes home, exhausted by how much she analyses how someone looked at her, spoke to her. Their body language. "What are they thinking of me?!"
And hiding away feels like the only option. Be alone. Be away from everyone. That way. You won't feel those things.
But loneliness becomes too much sometimes.
She welcomes the gap in the curtains. The slightly open window.
Her reminder that outside those walls. The world is continuing.
As she will too.
