“The other night I sat on the couch as my husband stood behind me and brushed my hair. I told Paul I felt like I was slowly falling apart. I was becoming just like one of my Grandma’s purses.

‘What does that mean?’ Paul asked.

‘My grandma never liked to get rid of a purse. She’d tape the handles, because the rest of it still worked. It wasn’t ripped. The zipper worked. Just the handles were breaking. She’d use a taped-up purse,’ I said. 

‘That’s who I’m becoming,’ I said.

‘No you’re not,’ he said. 

But it’s how I felt just then. And it’s how I feel a lot of the time. Parts of me work just fine. Other parts, specifically my left leg, is more like the taped up handles – kind of working, kind of getting the job done.” 

The paragraphs above are from my recently published essay “Prime Time or Off-Peak?” (It was written last year so I must now let readers know my son is thirteen, and not twelve. Which means I’m forty-five, and not forty-four, as stated in the essay.)

You can click here to be re-directed to Kaleidoscope Magazine Number 83. My essay is on page 62.