Recognize Yourself Again.
I stood in front of a bridal shop window in my own town for almost fifteen minutes last spring because I could not stop looking at the woman in the reflection, and it took me most of those fifteen minutes to understand that I was looking at myself. My name is Susan. I am 56 years old. I live in a town called Wadsworth, Ohio, where I have lived my entire adult life. I work as a receptionist for an orthodontic practice on Main Street. I have been married to my husband Greg for 33 years. We have two daughters, Hannah who is 28 and Lauren who is 25, both unmarried, both living in different cities, both careful when they call to ask how I am doing. I had walked downtown that Saturday morning to mail a package at the post office. The bridal shop is two doors down from the post office. There was a single ivory dress in the window. Strapless, with a long lace train. The kind of dress that catches your eye even if you are not in the market for a wedding dress, which I had not been in 1992 and was not in any year since. I stopped to look. I am 56. I like to look at pretty things. The reflection in the glass caught me before the dress did. There was a woman standing on the sidewalk in front of the window. She was wearing a navy cardigan and tan slacks. Her hair was the same color as my hair. She was holding a manila envelope, the way I was holding a manila envelope. She looked like she might have been the mother of a bride. Or possibly the grandmother of a bride. Her face was full down through her jaw in a way that suggested she had been heavy for a while. Her hands were thick around the manila envelope in a way that suggested her rings had been off for a while too. I had been looking at her for almost a full minute before I shifted my weight to my other foot and watched her shift her weight too. I stood very still after that. I do not know exactly how long I stood there, but I know that a woman from the bridal shop opened the door at some point and asked if I would
