It is said when the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something has suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.

I look in a mirror, imagining cracks on the surface filled with gold. Maybe then people would be able to see that I’m damaged.

I once worked in a strip club as a (fully clothed) waitress. While there, I learned that most of the dancers making the big bucks only pretended to get drunk on the $12 mocktail containing only cranberry & orange juice because it made the guys paying for the drink feel like he was going to get somewhere, that the two-and-a-half minute average pole dance on stage was just the right amount of time to scan the crowd for the sucker who would be an easy mark for the $20 lap dance, and that lap dance time was exactly that time when they composed their grocery lists in their heads because doing the same old thing gets tedious, ya know?

Ten years ago, I walked down the aisle in the (discount) wedding gown of my dreams. At the end of that aisle was the man to whom I pledged my love and who, in return, promised to see me through sickness, health, starter houses, and chasing my dreams just as fervently as he would chase his own. There's also the fifty pound weight gain when my thyroid decided to stop working. And the time I lost most of my hair and broke out in hives all over my body. And then the time that it happened again and the doctors told me I was allergic to most of what I was eating.

I hate not knowing.

My birthday and Christmas were great growing up. The part that has always sucked, though, has been the waiting to open the gifts wrapped prettily with my name on them. The Not Knowing while I had to wait to discover what was in that pretty wrapping paper was more agonizing than the thrill of finally getting my chance.