"I Used To Be Smart. Now I'm Just Stupid."

~ Quiz Kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy), Magnolia

It is very sad indeed when the only way you can slog through your day is to remind yourself of who or what or how you used to be. It's been a few years of this now... and it's not an identity crisis, it's much shallower than that. A crisis of adjectives.

I keep assuring myself that the malevolent little troll, the one in my head who governs my self-image, is doing me a favour by pointing out the fact that I've become this frumpy mom, this asexual lump, this woman I don't recognize in the mirror, even as I squint.

I used to carry these bones around differently, in a different body. A different brain made the judgment calls that shaped my life. Now every cell is new, and each is a cell that was born into grief. My face has changed- I don't wear it the same.

Grief makes you tired. It yellows the whites of your eyes and sucks out the moisture in your skin. There is such a thing as 'grief bloat'. It's like alcoholic bloat, where the whole body swells and becomes ruddy with longing. You long for your beloved, and when they don't come back, you realize that you are just a mammal, sniffing around for food, nursing your offspring, existing but not participating in your existence, even as you wonder at the apathy of the universe.

Even insects curse the universe when their sweethearts die.