Throwing Stars and Catching Hell

I like it. Clean. Let's see what I can do with this head on my shoulders.

Melanie was tired, frustrated and ready for bed. She stood, looking at herself in the mirror and wondered what had happened to her. In the stark and unforgiving light of the bathroom, she could clearly see the bags under her eyes, the dark circles that only seemed to accentuate that the years were rushing by all too quickly.

Where did her life go so quickly that she now found herself looking in the mirror wondering who the stranger was that stared back at her? She couldn't be sure, but she had the idea that someone had snuck in without her permission and stolen the girl she used to be. They'd thrown some wrinkled woman with too many not-so-great experiences into the world to take her place.

While she had Melanie's memories and the heartaches of years gone by chasing dreams into empty chasms, she couldn't remember reaching right now. Who is that woman in the mirror? Where did you come from? She appeared to herself to be a combination of the old her, full of dreams and attitude, and her mother. Adored, loved and not appreciated like she should have been, Melanie's mother was always a source of both pride and pain for her.

She could talk endlessly about the mistakes her mother may have made, but at the same time it would be injected with the pride of knowing that you only make real mistakes when you really live. Her mother really lived, but at the same time, she really cut herself short by the choices she made. Melanie felt like a failure much of the time because she just existed, she didn't fight to do better, to live harder, to have more love and fun than her mother had been given the time to have.

She flipped the long dark-blonde hair back over her shoulder. "I should get this crap cut shorter," she thought to herself, absently. "I don't even care for it to be this long." Staring into the mirror for a few more moments, she tried to piece together what she'd come in there for. Sure, she'd had to use the restroom when she went into it, but that was done and her hands were washed and now she stood there wondering how much longer her reflection should hold her attention before she should consider it being obsessive.

She thought for a minute about her family, so broadly distributed around the country, so many amazing people she didn't know. She regretted time lost, children she should have known more about that she wasn't around to see grow up. She regretted the time that got away.

Tilting her chin up, she looked hard at herself and thought, "Is this what an alcoholic looks like?" Doubting that she could be the face of the disease, the addiction, the "problem" that would have to be dealt with, she stared into the mirror. Suddenly she realized that she did somewhat know the person that looked back at her. She was her mother without the passive and self deprecating demeanor and the ability to drink and sleep through a rampage. She was her father without the blinding rage, without the drive to beat the "bad" out of someone else when it was she who harbored it. She knew the rage was in her. She knew the drive to drink til it was numb was in her. She wasn't sure what to do about it. It wasn't clear if she was hiding from herself or her loves in life or the world in general. Testing the waters felt like the right thing to do but she wasn't sure if she'd wind up surviving it or falling in and going under for good.