Just Like Her

The lights were shimmering just like her dress, just like her. 

After months of avoiding looking in the mirror and hating what passed by on the other side in the mirrors, she felt good. She felt happy. She didn’t look down at herself and want to scratch away all her insecurities. She looked down and saw a glittery, shimmery dress looking back at her, something that made her comfortable. After months of feeling stuck in an unfamiliar body with strange clothes hanging on it, she felt she had regained ownership of her body. She felt confident again.

The room was filled with serenity just like her eyes, just like her.

After months of feeling at war with herself, she felt at peace. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel alone, didn’t feel lost in a room filled with people. She felt that she belonged. She stopped caring about what other people thought because she was confident once again. Her inner demons quieted down after creating ruckus insistently for months. She was living in the serene moment, not thinking about what lay in her past or what the future held. She was present.

The air was charged with musical notes just like her fingertips, just like her.

After months of feeling numb, she felt again. She just, felt. Her heart was pumping louder and faster in the best way possible. Her brain was buzzing, not with random thoughts she could never catch but with happiness. There was no longer a pit in her stomach, it was instead replaced with butterflies, the kind that made her expectant and not dreadful about the future. She could feel her extremities, her toes in her heels, tapping along with the beat of the music, and her fingertips, charged. She felt.

There was still that voice in her mind, the one that was always there, the one that didn’t even leave on nights like these. It was planting seeds of doubt in her happy, freshly mowed mind. It was questioning this change, questioning the permanence of this change. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew. She knew highs like this were always accompanied by equally devastating lows. And she was trying her best to prepare herself.

The lights were taken down and put in the back of the closet, just like her dress. 

The room vacated making it empty once again, just like her eyes.

The air was muted and still once more, just like her fingertips.

Just like her.