Dear Wigleaf,

I think I've finally figured out my first tattoo. Yesterday, during yoga at the Healing Center, each occupant of the adjacent mats sported distracting ones on their forearms. To my left: move forward. On my right: just breathe. My idea, an inked response to both, arrived in peaceful warrior: I'm trying.

What do you think? Maybe I can get it done before my thirty-day pass expires around Easter.

I know, how gauche, to brag about trying. For years, I feigned effortlessness, but I'm tired of pretending it's easy to do certain things, or to stop. The habits that are the hardest are the ones that most need breaking. Fortunately, I've moved back home to this city that honors trying more than achieving. It's a place of ongoing healing, never fully healed. Driving to yoga, I passed a closed elementary school, its marquee forever advertising Registration—8/17/2005.

Fat Tuesday's gone, though its glitter and sunburn linger. It was as late, almost, as it can ever be—ample time for accumulations that already need discarding. Now, we swear we'll try to change for real, not like we resolved in the year's first six days, before Rouses started stocking king cakes and, well. You know. It had been so long since I could buy them at the grocery.

My aunt cut the fish-fry listings from the newspaper and taped them to my fridge. I'm not sure I'll make it to one, but I'll try.

What have you given up?

Colleen




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