The journey to Happiness

Like my Mirror Years Ago

Back in London everything was different. Magda had scrubbed the apartment from top to bottom everything was neatly put away, towels folded in the linen closet, dust shaken from the curtains, freshly washed sheets wrapped around the worn mattress; engulfed in lavender tide. Everything was clean, too clean; her apartment was sterile. Wiped from the grim, clean of despair. The house wasn't a home and Jessie wasn't a person, not the person she was. Her mirror wiped clean of the dust and dirt. Sunlight spilling through the curtains the one time it choose not to rain in London. Staring at her reflection, no sight of
Comparison.

Garbed in worn out denim and a t-shirt that was three sizes too big with holes in the seams and worn converses with the soles peeling from the stitching. She still bore the last name of her family, dawned with the same features that were posted all over Instagram but no resemblance to the person she was before Tokyo. Staring long and hard, wandering fingers ghosting over pale skin and cracked lips, wiping the smudged mascara as she peered at the person she wasn't.

Everything was different than before; not even just Tokyo. When she sat shivering under the pale light at Georgians Bay with Vanessa strong shoulder pressed tightly against her delt. How they sat in the whipping wind with chilled glass bottles griped close to their chest. How they didn't have to speak-they just knew that this is what they needed. Comfort in forms other than words the silent plea for help and the wordless answer meet under the starless sky. The chill of the thin windows they sat under in the Inn. The burn holes in the comforter under the No smoking sign and the way the A/C dripped onto them in the mid morning light. They way Vanessa wholly consumed her in the wee hours of the morning.

Shifting to the floor she stared long and hard. The slit in the curtains letting in enough light to truly see herself, the way her jaw set and lip quivered slightly as unkept finger nails raked across the soft jaw and under the smeared eye makeup, how her fingers shook softly as they danced across freckles. How her eyes sunk into her skull, the pale skin red from wind and sunburnt ears peaked out from unkept locks. It was so similar but not familiar.

Just like after warm races in highschool, how the bib hung off slim shoulders and shorts sliding higher and higher against her thighs as she ran, how her ankle throbbed with each punishing step. How she used to sit in front of the full length mirror in the locker room after everyone had left. How she would yank at the knots in her hair trying to deconstruct the disaster that had brewed with each mile ran. How she would scratch at the dirt and blades of grass embedded in her ankle after the providence meet. They way she used to skim over every inch of skin and pick at what was wrong. Stopping at her hips, fisting the skin that hung over the band of her shorts, running her fingers over the skin that protruded through her bib. How she hated the way her lips cracked and bled after miles.

She was back in high-school so familiar yet so long ago. How everything was changing and she wasn't. Everyone was moving on-progressing while she sat stagnant like an a hot wedged in the bay while all the other boats kept moving. The way Sheridan ran across the field with Chapman right behind her as Magda and Hannah collapsed right outside the 18 sobbing and pounding their fist into uprooted soil. How was she supposed to forget. The hatred that sat front and center in Lindalls eyes how she kept tightening the strap on her gloves and how Stina kept picking at her laces. How could she not remember. She couldn't not I hear everything that was spoken when the crowds stayed home and people spoke freely and stupidly on Twitter. How everyone picked on everyone after failures and success. They way no one saw anything except the country's flag and the pride of nationalism toward their own while shading any and everyone from bordering landmasses.

She'll never forget the way Vanessa's eyes dropped when she walked the podium standing next to her teammates the way she kept scanning the stadium as if her parents would appear pressed to the boards with jerseys and signs screaming for her to greet them. Everything had changed as it did but nothing was progressing. Not for her. Never for her. Sure she got faster, and fitter, but she still didn't know how to cope with loss, how to only have one drink and not ten, how to only listen to one song rather than the whole playlist, how she couldn't just answer one email but all of them, and how she never could pull herself from her closest to hang up wet towels. Nothing happened. The guilt still weighed heavy on her shoulders, the bags under her eyes grew with each morning light, and the songs on her sisters playlist never changed.

She couldn't do anything, not without others. But why was asking so hard. She knew in some deep dark place in her mind that she could call up Pernille or Magda and they would race right over to help her with anything and everything. But she couldn't do that- not to them. How could she win an Olympic gold medal but not wash her towels? how on God's green earth could she wear the armband for her country  but couldn't pick up the phone to ring her doctor? Why could she do these great things? Yet the simple tasks brought waves of anxiety that seemed to drown her with each beat of her heart? Why was everything so hard?

Sitting in front of her mirror fingers pinching at the pale skin on her stomach picking at the fat that hung over her jeans, picking at the skin protruding from her ribs. How they tears dropped from her eyes leaving little marks on her jeans. Nothing had changed yet everything did. Her face wasn't hers. The mascara smudged across her eyelid wasn't hers either. She was back in high school after her first national team camp. Everything was different the way people looked at her yet her grades didn't rise and her friend group never grew. She had matured for just a second only to be thrown back into the mundane pool of lonesomeness back in Ontario.

The gold trimmed mirror was so familiar yet the person it reflected wasn't her and would never truly be her, not to herself that is.