Daisy Sparrow

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Dear [[Redacted]] (you know who you are)

Like most peoples', my bed has 4 drawers in it.

My bed is also in the corner of the room. Well, almost. There's some pipes boxed in right in the corner so there's a narrow gangway, maybe 12 inches wide, that runs from the foot of the bed about 3/4 of the way up towards the head.

Semi-obviously, the bedside table is therefore on the other side. It blocks the first drawer. It's easy enough to get into it if I really need to, but in here I keep spare curtains, and other things I could go a whole year without needing.

Down from that, in the most accessible drawer in the bed, there's the spare bedding (sheets, pillowcases, etc). All neatly inside one of the pillowcases for each set, apart from the new ones I haven't taken out of the packets yet.

Round the corner, at the foot of the bed on the side that faces the narrow gangway, I keep all the spare blankets. Because they wouldn't fit in the same drawer as all the rest of the bedding. An extra duvet, a spare flat sheet, several knitted things and a large purple throw. In the summers, where I live, a single flat sheet can be too much; in the winters, two duvets, a knitted blanket and going to bed in all your clothes with your hood up to keep your ears warm, is still not enough. Honestly, I tend to just leave this drawer open (half-open) all of the time, so if I need to grab an extra layer, or kick one off, I can just do it.

In the space on the floor next to that, in that gap where I shove the extra pillow that I need for sitting up reading but not for sleeping, there's an extension cord that houses the plugs for my lamp and the chargers for both my phone and my kindle. And sitting on the floor next to that -- most of the time -- is the teddy bear you bought me.

Guarding the vault.

Because in that final drawer, the one that I couldn't access without moving the bed, which in reality would mean emptying the entire bedroom -- the drawer directly under where I usually sleep -- lies my dirty little secret. Every momento I have of you. (Obviously, not including the teddy bear.)

At the other side of the house, in the cupboard in the spare bedroom (the side with a door that bolts shut, right at the back, behind plenty of other things) hangs a wedding dress that I can't bear to part with yet. That I can't bear to look at to get around to deciding how to dispose of it. A dress I've tried on but never worn for it's primary purpose.

The dress I would have worn to marry you.

And in the same vein, I also can't bring myself to look into the vault. It's been years. And not enough of them.

Because as you may have guessed by now, my dirty little secret is that, after all this time, I'm still not over you. Still in love with you. However you want to say it. Personality wise, you're everything that I both did and didn't know that I needed, and on a good day, I only end up thinking about you once or twice, my darling.

But I made one of the classic mistakes, I suppose. Character is not the same as personality, and on that front, I think I fell in love with your potential, and not with actual you. Either that, or I projected a whole lot of my own "when I find a guy I love, he will be like this___" nonsense onto you that was never yours, to the extent that it clouded my vision, and I only saw what I wanted to see.

Or both, probably.

So, am I still in love with you? Or am I still in love with the idea of you?

And, honestly... how do I tell the difference??

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If you could answer me that, I think maybe then I could open the vault... 

A LOT of curly hair. Nope, more than that. ... And a bit more still.

And you'd think curly hair would be great; swishy, bouncy curls, fabulously full of joie de vivre, the envy of all those with slightly lank locks. And you'd be right.

Some of the time.

Maybe... 10%. Maybe less.

The irony, of course, is, that, if one does actually manage to get one's hair into an actual hairstyle that is not just 'hair hanging down from one's head, plus or minus a hair accessory', chances are, having curly hair will actually be helpful, because it's already used to being bent into different shapes, and having hair so thick means that it will hold in that style all freaking day. Probably all week, actually, if you didn't have to sleep on it. Straight hair is much, much easier to make many styles with, not including fancy styles with lots of twists in them. Colleagues with straight hair all one length get my envy here, even though they would then have the style fall down rather more quickly.

Well, can't you use a hair straightener on it?

Of course I could, and sometimes I do, but did I mention I have A LOT of hair?! Straightening it takes a long, long time. Not to mention, heating it up is obviously going to dry it out further (leading to more split ends!), so even if it was straight, chances are it still wouldn't be sleek.

Well, then, isn't there any way of just making your curls look nicer more often?

You mean like a curling iron? Yes, but, basically I'd run into the exact same problems. Even forgetting the heat for a minute, I still have A LOT of hair. I got it curled with a curling iron when I was bridesmaid in a wedding, once. It still took three hours. (Yes, you read that right. Three hours to curl my already-curly hair. I have A LOT of hair!)

I do have a couple of other options.

I could roll sections of it up in soft curlers when it's wet, and leave it overnight. That does lead to nice curls the next day, and is now my go-to method for very special occasions. It will still take a long time and I need to get someone else to do it for me because I can't do the back of my head, because I can't see it, but it is an option.

And then there's the "Curly Girl" method. The short version is, the stuff that's in most shampoos is great for making straight hair look sleeker, but is the opposite of helpful for curly hair, so don't use them, mostly you just need conditioner, and dry your hair with a t-shirt not a towel. I found one product that is packed full of moisturizing ingredients that also gently cleanses and I just use that one now. It's still tricky, because I can't see the back or top of my head when I'm in the shower, and even if I could, my hair's wet, so I don't know how it's going to end up looking when it's dry, so I'm never really sure exactly how much to use each time, and if I don't apply it evenly, some sections will be very curly ringlets and others will not. Sometimes it works, and it looks fabulous! Sometimes it doesn't.

Curly hair does what it wants.