it doesn't have to be beautiful.

when i started working from home i stopped learning how people dressed themselves in public. or i just forgot how to not look like i just came from the gym or from sleepy time yoga. i don't know what to do with hair that just wants to live in a top knot everyday or worry if i need to shave my legs if i'm going to some sort of formal event because i refuse to let pantyhose back into my life.

i'm letting myself grow unruly, like our unkempt back yard.  i'm overgrown with spring flowers growing wherever the seeds were tossed months ago. the dead straw like stems of mowed down clover left to bake in a the sun during a too hot summer. the random potatoes jeff buried in the corner to see if we could get new life out of wrinkled aging spuds we forgot on a counter. it is all randomness. it is all throwing stuff out there and seeing what nature will let stick.

i'm a lush jungle of too much stuff. my belly grown and flopping over, too full of memories, of meals both consumed in joy and in sadness. the binge of breakfast cereal and breads and all the things i denied myself. there was a time where there simply wasn't enough honey nut cheerios in the world that would satisfy. this hunger that was let loose after a lifetime of being tidy, neat, being all things good and quiet and easy to swallow.  full of order. easily contained.

these days i'm unraveled, like ursula unleashing her tentacles, an uncontrollable mass of life and limbs coming undone. the first deep breath after a long breathless evening in an undergarment squeezing you small.  the sigh of relief after letting go, shaking loose and sitting with whatever you are now, now that you are free.

i have no discipline because it does not serve me anymore.

i am unruly because my days have no structure.

i am judged by the state of my body and the rules i now no longer choose to live by.

it doesn't have to be beautiful.

nothing has to be.

it. just. is.