internal struggle

"Today on the blog," she began to write, but then she erased it because it sounded too pretentious.

She looked at her cat, sleeping in a lump like a clean wash cloth tossed straight from the dryer onto the living room chair, and she smiled at how cute she was.

She thought, "Maybe I should eat some peanut butter," but then she looked at her calorie-counting app and saw she was already 16 calories over her daily goal and it was only 5:32pm.

She sighed and drank some water.

"Today on the blog," she began again, but then she erased it because it sounded like an episode of 20/20.

She looked at her copy of The Crucible lying on the ottoman and wondered if she'd like it as much now as she did when her 11th grade English class took turns reading different parts aloud. That was when one student pronounced "conjure" like "bonjour" and then everyone thought that was how it was supposed to be pronounced and continued pronouncing it that way through the entire book.

She sniffed a laugh and thought about how foolish her classmates were, but then she remembered how her 11th grade notebook had been slathered in pictures of Mel Gibson and Aragorn and she shifted on her couch to try to forget being 17.

"TODAY ON THE BLOG," she began louder, but then she erased it because who was she? Just another voice in the din.

Her cat stretched on the chair and she wished she was a big enough wash cloth to wrap her around her shoulders, using her little pink nose as a button to fasten at the front so she wouldn't slide off.

That could be poetic, she thought, and she tried to write it down, but then she thought, was it poetic? Or just taxidermy?

Sometimes she'd read things she wrote when she was 20 and wish she could be that person again. She'd read the words like a distant spectator and think of them as belonging to someone else, someone she wished she could know better but could never become. The same way you watch a famous person be interviewed on TV.

Maybe she could just tell them what she'd done this year, she thought. She started to make a list.

1. Went to Colorado
2. Went to Tennessee
3. Went to Florida
4. Went to Europe
5. Went to a Twenty One Pilots concert
6. Went to Northern Wisconsin
7. Went to therapy

She looked up at the clock on the wall above the TV. 6:16pm on a Monday night. Who was playing Monday Night Football? What should she wear tomorrow? Why does peanut butter have so many calories?

8. Got a new car
9. Got a ukulele
10. Got a tattoo
11. Got an eHarmony account
12. Got a better idea of what journey God might be asking her to take
13. Got the flu

Just another voice in the din, she thought.

14. Got rid of the eHarmony account
15. Almost got a gun to protect herself from the stalkers she accumulated from the eHarmony account
16. Did NOT get hepatitis from her tattoo like her coworker Pam thought she might
17. Did not get a gun
18. Got the Hallmark Channel

Well, she supposed, being another voice in the din meant she had a voice, at least. Suppose she used it and left it up to the din to decide whether or not it listened?

She went to the cupboard and grabbed the peanut butter.