Sigh...

One week.
One week, and 2 days.

Sitting on the floor after wrestling with my favortie 3 year old cousin, I watched his eyes wander around the room.

Lauren came to town right before Christmas. She spent about 3 hours at work with me, keeping me company when the hotel barely had 200 of its 1700 rooms filled. Watching CSI with me and chatting. Disliking the evil manager with me. Commiserating about being stuck in retail, wanting to do so much more with my life and time. She's sweet like that.

Lauren and I have been friends for 11 years. We've never fought, never fallen out. We've been jealous of each other, but never in a hateful way. Its been purely motivational. We share. She is my best friend. We comfort and support. We've shared without boundaries or hesitation. I have something to tell her now, but I know the words won't come, so I'm writing this little tale.

Before she left Atlanta, she directed me to her purse and two crudely wrapped, solid objects. "now dont scream," her mom said as I opened the paper. But of course, I squeaked anyway, as is my nature.

Two pigs. One fuschia, one teal. Shiny and pretty and perfect. Anyone whose ever been in my room knows I've loved pigs for a while. I feel pigs are underestimated, and are actually very cute and smart despite conceptions about them. So I have lots of pigs, as a sort of, symbol maybe? I, too, feel misunderstood sometimes, and when I defend the virtues of the piggies, I'm sometimes defending myself.

So these two pigs sat to the left of my tv, holding quite a collection of foreign coins, about 50 in each. The fuschia one named La, and the teal one named K, after my nickname.

And my little cousin, in all innocence, dropped K on my cement, basement, bedroom floor. She shattered. Coins in a pile. Teal in about 7 pieces. I wanted to cry right then. One week and two days I had it.

I sent him upstairs and grabbed the dirt devil. Sat on the floor, defeated, and vacuumed up the dust. Grabbed the bigger parts, "maybe I can put it back together."

I think if the La would have broken, I'd have been mad. but this is the one I designated a few days earlier to represent me. And now I was collecting me to put in a bag, while Kesi tried to distract me by asking me about the coins. I let him, for a minute. But aint that life, even your symbolism is subject to tragedy.

I don't think I want to replace it, try to pretend it never happened. K has character now, a story. I went to the grocery store and got some glue. Later today, I'm going to put me back together. Funny enough, its what Lauren's done for me so many times before, so art imitates life maybe?
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