Fran Braga Meininger regrets the unraveling that comes with age, but welcomes her new self.
I’m that old sweater. You know the one. We all have it, tucked away in the bottom drawer or the very back of your closet. It’s been there forever. It was your favorite. You wore it with such panache and loved how it hugged your beautiful, young, voluptuous breasts, back then, before they did what they’ve done now. You don’t really care that it doesn’t look like it did and neither do you. You are fond of what it represents. It is a memento of who you once were and how you looked.
But now it’s unraveling at the cuffs and the collar; the seams are splitting and the shoulders misshapen. It’s really done. It’s lost what it once had and needs to go.
I’m like that too. I’ve lost what I once had. I don’t look the same. Things aren’t as perky, as tight and firm. I’m not as bright or witty. I think differently, my perspective and my opinions have shifted. My emotions still run deep but they are now tempered with a dose of patience. The candlelight doesn’t dance in my eyes as it did long ago. But I still have a flame.
I, too, am unraveling in places, shedding what I wore so proudly, allowing what is underneath to show through; being freed as the threads loosen in all the right places. I tug at the ends, watching as slowly they come away and reveal below a whole other me.