A Closet and a Vanity

According to my facebook profile, "in 2007 [I] fled the social scene."

Those are facebook's words, not mine. It's rather fitting to my mood right now, except that, I feel more like I've fled the scene of LIFE. It's a hit-and-run: life did the hitting and I did the running.

When I was very small, my bedroom had a little nook we called the "vanity." It was just large enough for a 270 degree mirror and a sink. I would have LOVED it 15 years later when I would have used it for its intended primping purpose, but at 2 and 3 years old, the vanity was simply a fabulous place to hide. I'd crawl under the counter, careful to avoid the sink's plumbing, slide the pocket door shut (WAS there a pocket door, Mom? Or is that a figment of my imagination?), and sit in the dark with a stuffed animal. It felt so safe. I'd do the same thing in my oddly-shaped triangular closet with a distant hidden corner that only a small child could squeeze into.

My parents sold that house 20 years ago, but I still miss the dark corners. I miss the places to hide. These days, I sure wish I had a vanity, or a triangular closet handy. I wish I had a safe, small place where I could curl up and pretend that the whole world had disappeared. No job applications. No boring dates. No distressing bank statements. No saccharine brides. No laundry. No drunk neighbors. No sticky-sweaty afternoons. No insomnia. No headaches.

It's late-ish, and I'm being more honest than maybe I should be. But...there you have it. I want to be back in my oddly-shaped childhood room, with deer looking in my windows, with shadows creating ghostly faces in the Renoir print, with bed-times and Kindergarten worries.

But, now that I think about it, those Kindergarten worries that sent me to the back of the closet were just as stressful and horrid in their time as my current hit-and-run troubles are now. So, I really don't want to go back. I just want a bigger, better vanity to hide beneath until I'm ready to re-emerge into life.