Dress Up

Coffee and Dresses

I love two things:
1-Coffee
2-Playing Dress-Up

I've loved playing dress up since i was a little girl. I remember having trunks full of dresses, high heels 10 sizes too big for my child-sized feet. I remember feather boas, oversized dresses, silly mail-order princess costumes, dance recital outfits, garage sale treasures from other girls' dress-up stashes. I remember the miss america sashes, the faux pearls, the Wet N' Wild red lipstick and blue eye shadow. I remember the play makeup sets. I remember the pictures I wanted taken of me. I remember feeling so wonderul getting dressed up with no place to go but to a "tea" (it was always water) party with my cabbage patch dolls with my little kid tea set my grandmother bought me. I would put a feather boa on all the dolls and put them in an outfit or two and then we'd sit down and have tea like ladies. I'd wear white gloves and everything.
I have since outgrown the cabbage patch dolls. And i no longer enjoy "tea." I do, however, love coffee. This morning I woke up with a strange desire to write, drink coffee, and play with my most beautiful clothes. It always makes me sad that the most beautiful clothes I own almost never get worn. I have a strapless pink dress that fits me like a glove, but I never have anywhere to wear it to. This afternoon I came home from an empty shopping trip to nowhere and decided to go through my closet. I saw the pink dress and I had the strongest desire to put it on. So I did. And it fit just like the first time I put it on. I pulled the zipper up and remembered to move my boob out of the way (okay, when I said it fits like a glove, i really meant "it's tight in the boob department). I wore this dress once to an actual event, not including the times i've put it on just to see if it still fits. It was to a Valentine's Day dinner/play night with a boy long gone. I remembered the way he looked at me in the dress and I became nostalgic about loves and lovers gone by. Will anyone else look at me that way? Or have I depleted the source?

My phone rang and broke my concentration. "Craig Home" the phone said. I answered. "Where were YOU last night?" he accusingly inquires. "You had a date last night!" I laugh. No, I scoff.

"No, I didn't. I was in bed by 11....alone, thank you!" I am amused by everyone's idea of me...the idea that I am this resilient red rubber ball that just bounces back no matter how hard or soft you throw it. My false front fools them all. On the outside, I am untouchable. I am the girl who loses her mother, loses every great love she's ever known, sabatoges everything good that happens to her and moves on without a trace of emotion. On the inside, I am the shaken bottle of Dom you don't want to open because you'll be covered with the contents. There are bits and fragments of heart, hope, and trust on the inside that would slash your flesh immediately upon arrival. But I don't let you see that. And I don't usually like for you to know it's there. I guess I am in a sharing kind of mood today. When the sharing comes on, it comes on strong. We call it "flooding" in the psych business. Maybe i'm flooding. It's the time of year where I start doing things like that...where beginnings and endings often have a habit of making themselves prevalent. There's a two year anniversary coming up. And a day that should be a two year anniversary coming up even sooner. Do you know that I still love you? Do you know that not a day goes by that I don't think about you? Do you think of me too?

A million others wait at my gate.

And I put on the black dress. Of all the articles of clothing I've ever bought, this one is the most scandelous. It's a long black dress...not long to the floor, but long past my knees. But it's a very thin spaghetti strap dress that hardly contains the flesh underneath. I've never actually worn the dress. It hasn't even been devirginized. The tag is still on it. It was on sale and it was beautiful and I had to have it. It is so much like many of the things in my life. Almost perfect. And kept almost perfect by never being worn or touched by me. So here I sit in the black dress, drinking my coffee...black.