***
Weeks passed like they always did when you weren't really awake in your own skin. Days blended. Nights blurred. Grief settled not like a storm, but like smog, thick and dull and hard to see through.
And then somehow… it was a month and half later. I didn't even know how I'd survive not doing anything that long except just existing.
I was standing in front of my mirror again, preparing for my first day of work since the roller coaster of events in my life, twisting my hair into something that said, "Look at me, I'm fine."
A lie, but whatever.
It felt strange dressing up again, putting on real clothes instead of whatever I could find clean on the floor. My skirt felt tighter. My blouse still smelled faintly like fabric softener. My mascara brush felt foreign in my hand.
I didn't look like a woman who had just buried her mother.
But I didn't look like me either. I wasn't even sure I remembered what I was supposed to look like.
