Flick

January 25, 2016

Life sucker-punched me.

It started out innocently enough. So innocent that I don't even know how it started. I assume it started when I was a baby. I was hungry but wasn't fed right away. Life gave me a light flick on the cheek. I fell while I was learning to walk. A light flick on the other cheek. I fell on my face and lost a tooth. A harder flick. My parents divorced and I had to switch schools. Flick. Flick. I broke up with my first boyfriend. The flicks just kept getting harder. I moved from my first apartment that I shared with a friend to a basement apartment in the suburbs far from my friends and family. I felt so isolated. Flick to the lip. My husband lost his job. Flick to the eyebrow. Husband is diagnosed with cancer. Five-finger flick to the eye. My sister dies of cancer at the age of twenty-three. Ten-finger flick to the eyes. It didn't take long to figure out that the flicks weren't going to go away. They were just going to keep coming at me. I stopped noticing the flicks to the cheek. There were just too many. But those ten-finger flicks to the eyes? Those hurt. I was on the lookout for those. I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath. And while I wasn't looking I got sucker-punched in the eye.

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As a point of interest, I'm probably wearing more makeup in that picture than I did at the prom.