The Magnitudes

I think of my life now.

Already in a year, I feel as though I’ve lead three or four different lives.

There was January, with the head wound and the blackouts. February and March, the legal trouble.

A swift, “overnight” move to Southern Florida, nearly kissing Cuba.

April: rehab. May, June: rehab.

A few more lives in between those.

Now, December. A new apartment (again).

It would seem trite to say, “I feel like a new woman”, wouldn’t it? It’s like some cheesy Clairol commercial or something where I dye my hair a riveting shade*, but I do. I live in the Mermaid State, I can take a ten minute drive to the beach, to the ocean, whenever I want to. I still have the head wound, the gash I sustained when I blacked out during the New Year when I had a pity party all by myself and crashed into the television.

Reader, I don’t miss that version of myself, but I do mourn her. She was so lost after her mother died, after she felt abandoned by everyone, she was like a tarantula mottling herself, hugging some craggy rock in the desert while the sun looked on like a white specter, unforgiving as God’s eye.

How many different lives I’ve lived in a single year.

*I did indeed dye my hair a new shade, raven, midnight black, but it was with a box of Garnier.