the Mirror

    I take a good look in the mirror. It takes moment to fully reconcile what's in front of me, so I stand with arms on the counter and soak it in. 

It's a surreal disconnect between the oblivious image I hold of myself and the person everyone sees. The sensation washes over me. Perpetually slumped shoulders and creases of worry etching my forehead betray my story long before the lips could. It's the look of an pathetically average man in the midst of learning one of life's many cruel lessons. 

Life isn't clean. It's not some paint-by-numbers, laid out for easy consumption cliché as portrayed in some romance drama or made-for-tv movie. No... it's messy, cut with jagged corners from scissors held in shaking hands. A hard lesson, but one needing learning. 

Oh well, time to go to work.

    The sun hangs low in the morning sky, proud and assertive. Daring you to look. I gaze around from the passenger seat, trying futilely to enjoy passing scenery without frying my eyes by making direct contact. 

My coworkers chat in the front, socializing amiably while passing seamlessly from topic to topic. The chatter makes a relaxing background noise, like a forgotten television spouting random garbage. Other than the occasional request for agreement I'm left to consider my life as 'Me' when for so long it's been 'We'.