Not that he hadn’t seen me in yoga pants and a sweatshirt a million times.
But I couldn’t help wanting to show off a little bit for him. I wanted him to notice me like I noticed him. I wanted him to look at me and think, have I ever really seen this girl before? Do I realize what I lost?
Because maybe it was just me or maybe I was crazy, but those were the thoughts tumbling through my head.
Had I lost the best thing in my life? Had I lost the best I could do? The only man that would put up with me and love me for me?
Even if we had problems?
I swallowed down my remorse and changed into my black yoga pants and an old sweatshirt. I had cut the neck off of it in college, so it hung off my shoulder in a way that maximized comfort and cuteness.
Or at least I thought so.
I took my time upstairs, fiddling with my long dark hair. It was naturally curly, not like Kara’s wild hair, but there were some definite volume issues I had to work out on a daily basis. I usually wore it down to work or partially back, but nothing felt better than at the end of the day when I could throw it up on top of my head in a messy bun.
I was pretty sure that would be what heaven felt like. Like a thousand years of messy buns.
I stared at myself in the mirror for long minutes after that. I looked at my dark brown eyes and the light smattering of freckles that dotted my nose and cheeks. I tried to rub away the barely there crow’s feet that had started to crease next to my eyes and the smile lines I knew would only worsen.
Thirty.
I would be thirty-one soon.
And this was the moment in my life I had finally realized I was getting old. If not old, then older.
I thought back to when I first met Nick and how I had imagined my life at thirty.
This was not it.
I had not planned on getting divorced.
I had not planned to live in a tiny house on the edge of the city.
I had not planned to feel this much stress or this much emptiness.
Once upon a time, thirty had felt like I would finally have made it.
It had felt like a destination.
Like a good destination.
It wasn’t fair of me to ask Nick to change his expectations if I wasn’t willing to change mine. Was my life so bad?
Apart from the divorce, was it really such a terrible thing I didn’t have the perfect house, the perfect job, the perfect two-point-five kids?
My hands settled on my abdomen and I felt a stinging pain lance across my soul.
Some things were okay. I loved this house. There were days that I even loved my job. And if I didn’t love it, at least I felt fulfilled by it.
But there were things I wanted too, things that weren’t terrible to want, things that were worth being disappointed with.
My marriage for instance.
My lack of kids.
This shattering of my heart and spirit.
I needed to do something. I needed to fix this hole inside of me and figure out what else I could have in life that would replace these things.
Or at least I needed to heal and move on.
I needed to change my expectations… my dreams. I needed to find new ones.
I needed to find something else to hope and wish for.
Unable to look at myself for a second longer, I turned away from the mirror and made my way back downstairs. My stomach grumbled loudly and I was happy to feel hunger again.
Ruby’s had been the catalyst yesterday. I had been able to eat ever since and my body thanked me for finally getting some nourishment.
Nick was just finishing up with the sink when I walked into the kitchen. He’d removed his oxford and stripped down to the black undershirt he wore beneath it.
I swallowed convulsively.
That was just not fair.
I had to invest millions of dollars in antiaging creams and worry about my boobs trying to high five my bellybutton. And he turned thirty and looked like that. Like thirty was the best thing that ever happened to his face.
And womankind.
Men were the worst.