post-scrub.

The morning sun was shining through the slats of the blinds on my south-facing window. I sat on the floor, my hair dripping on the carpet, wrapped in a towel. I hate stepping on wet spots on the carpet. It feels unsettling to my callous-less wintertime foot. Dry skin, shriveled and un-sunned, but never quite ivory. (I am very conscious of this.) Pull knees to chest, chin to knees. Wrap the towel tighter. I sink slowly into an imaginary well, swallowed whole, lower and lower. So low so low. Slow and wholly. Maybe I can will myself into nonexistence and all that will be left is wet spots on the carpet, until they evaporate and we are all gone. Gone below.

won't. can't.

it's awful of me to say this, but

I've been missing London a lot lately.

scrub.

I shampooed my hair three times in the shower the other day. Accidentally. Sort of. I'll wash my hair twice sometimes, just because it feels better when it rinses the second time. But the other day I washed my hair three times. I think I just wanted that extra minute and a half, that extra 90 seconds it takes to lather and rinse.

The 10-15 minutes I spend in the shower have come to mean a lot to me. In the shower, I can't check my phone. Can't check my email. Can't talk to anyone -- can't ignore anyone. I have no obligation to be doing anything that isn't washing my hair or body. I don't have to think of where else I'm supposed to be or what else I should be doing, because I'm doing something that needs to be done. Like a child, I like to pretend that everything that stresses me out, everything that makes me anxious or sad or hurt or angry, goes down the drain with the suds and water. And I breathe.

Sometimes throughout the day, I feel like I forget to breathe. The moment the water hits my scalp, though, I grow conscious of the fact that I am breathing effortlessly. It comes in gasps at times. It's like seeing the sun for the first time after days of rain, or coming up from under a wave crashing over you in the ocean -- a sense of calm, a sense of relief. It's permission to stop for a while and take care of me. It's 15 minutes where I'm allowed to be okay. Or, maybe, it's 15 minutes where I'm allowed to not be okay.

I hate feeling this transparent.

It's weird to remember when no one else does. Do memories get etched into one's consciousness, deeper than conscious recollection? If no one else remembers, maybe it never happened.