In my head as I get dressed, The Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling” is getting louder and louder until it feels as if the pounding in my ears matches he pulse of my heart. This is a night I have been anticipating for months and for the first time in a LONG time, it’s mine. I must share this feeling with no one. And frankly, even if I wanted to, unless you lived in my head you wouldn’t understand it anyway. I look at my reflection in the mirror and I don’t see the little heartless girl from a small town in Texas, it is an updated version of the Grinch because my heart has somehow grown 2 sizes.

All the moving parts are turning and twisting. The presentation is moving along like a well-oiled machine and rather than butterflies in my tummy, it sort of feels like a hamster running circles in his stationary wheel. I stand up, I sit down. I am not quite sure what to with my hands and my arms suddenly feel incredibly long like I could twist them twice around my waist and still manage a princess wave. I notice my hands and question why I painted my nails. I am distracted. Breathe. Focus. Just as my mind is returning to the surroundings, I stand and then sit. Again. But this time, somehow my skirt catches on the pew and as I glide back to anchor my shoulders across the back of my seat. It isn’t until I cross my legs that I sense the coolness of the wood across my bare bottom. It is all I can do not to roll my eyes. Seriously? Not only am I rethinking my choice of underpants, I mean who wears a thong to their confirmation?!, but I cannot pull from my head how unbelievably inappropriate it is and how this cannot be what I remember from this night!

I shake it off. Minor details. The echoes, the sound of bells ringing. Then I am kneeling, enacting some sort of vison or dream, I honestly cannot make sense of it all. But he is crying, But I am not. I try to be brave and hold this wounded child in my hands, but I remember I am not a mother. I am barely a person. Then the moment when all our hands connect this bolt of electricity takes away my breath. I turn to look at her, but she’s no longer sitting where I left her and the whole space is empty like a forgotten tomb. There is an elephant on my chest and I desperately want to stand and run. But where? Wait. Stop. This is where I am meant to be.

Fast forward. It’s cold, but my forehead is warm from the oil. It drips into my eyes and I wipe it away only to notice mascara on my fingers because I have indeed been crying after all. I stand and turn one final time on new legs that I am convinced will never let me fall to far into the dark ever again.