I am 44 years old. I am in the attic, near my children’s rooms. Beside me, the washing machine spins like a mad clock. Time beats in circles of foam and dirty water. An old heart that still has something to say.
I look at myself in the mirror, but the reflection does not fully reveal itself to me. Patches over my skin. Patches over time. Scars on the inside. Short platinum hair, earrings aligned, musical notes on the staff of a forgotten symphony. My neck traced with fine lines, like cracks in a clay statue.
“You look good for your age,” some say. I am still beautiful. But not in the way I once was.
The drum spins. A lost planet in orbit. It turns me with it. Twenty years back. I look at myself. A flawless body and a brilliant mind carried by a blind woman. I wore beauty that did not beg for validation with the same carelessness with which I throw your clothes on the bed, certain they will always be there. I didn’t know it unravels over time. Like a sweater worn too often. Like a photograph with yellow edges. I had it, but I did not see it. Now, I search for it, through the eyes of then.
Those young eyes, flecked with green, dreamed of the future, of an attic house open to the sky, of rooms where children would sleep with rosy cheeks. They dreamed of a partner on whose shoulder I could rest my head, whether in laughter, or in helpless stumbles. They dreamed of traveling the world. They dreamed of building a life like a puzzle, piece by piece. They dreamed that when I finally found my place on the map of life, I would be happy and enjoy it all.
The drum spins. Time stretches like an endless ribbon. It pushes me forward. Another twenty years, this time, into the future. I see myself as a woman looking back from beyond the mirror, back at me, the person I am now. A woman who would give anything to return to this evening. To this mirror. To me, today, standing next to the washing machine, in this house where my small children sleep peacefully, their cheeks warm. A woman who wants to grasp my shoulders and whisper: “Look! Now! Here!”
The drum spins. My thoughts pull me forward and back, like a thread caught in a spindle that refuses to stop. Past and future tightly bound, knot upon knot, tightening around my throat, like the lines on my skin.
I pull away. I try to break the cycle. I try to stop the machine, just for a second. To sink into the silence between two rotations. I lift my eyes to the mirror and look deeply. Without the eyes of the past. Without the eyes of the future.
The drum spins. Full of clothes and time.
I remain.
How long a moment can be! I feel the weight settle on my shoulders. The years pressing into my face, my neck. I listen to the small breaths from the rooms next door. I look at my face again, just as it is now. Without comparing it to yesterday, without projecting it into tomorrow.
I am 44 years old. I am in the attic, near my children’s rooms. Beside me, the washing machine spins like a tired clock.
Today, I choose to be here.