Page 7 of Joey

Revealing yourself.

Reenergizing yourself.

And remaking yourself.

I think this author went a little crazy with the repeating R words. There’s a name for that. I know there is. I’m just not smart enough to know what it is without looking it up.

I’m not really smart enough to understand anything this book is telling me. I know how to get things done, and read people, and make shit up. I’m pretty good at lying. In fact, that might be my only true talent. So I’m pretty sure this book is a waste of time and nothing good is gonna come of it.

But I listen anyway.

And when night comes—when the darkness flows through my living room window thirteen hours and forty-two minutes later—I get up, walk into the bathroom, and stare at myself in the mirror.

“I don’t recognize you,” I tell the girl starting back at me. “I don’t know who you are.”

She has dirty blond hair. Messy and long. And light brown eyes that almost, but not quite, qualify as hazel. She has high cheekbones, but only because she’s too skinny. And a cute nose.

I do have a cute nose.

So OK. I recognize that part of me.

But everything else… I dunno.

“Who are you?”

She doesn’t answer. Because she doesn’t know either.

But maybe the better question is, “Who do you want to be?”

I think about that for days. Maybe even a whole week.

I think about people I see on TV, or on the street when I leave to go grocery shopping. I think about that as I’m reaching for another bag of expensive espresso beans and then pull back my hand.

I decide that Brooke Alder does not drink espresso. Not the old one, not the new one.

Instead I turn around and stare at the tea section, choose a cinnamon-flavored one with no caffeine, and put it in my empty basket.

I buy it at the self-checkout lane and then wander down a few blocks to the home store and buy a tea pot.

Maybe I’m a cinnamon tea kind of girl?

I look around at the other women in the store with me. Wonder who they are. Wonder if they ever lost themselves before.

There are four types of women. I came up with this theory the other day.

One. She is a wife. And she looks like a wife. She dresses average and probably has a kid in that little front seat of her shopping cart. She looks tired and at first you think, Thank God I’m not her. Because she also looks stressed.

But then you notice that she smiles every once in a while. It’s a secret smile too. And she aims that smile at her husband who holds her hand or her kids when they do something unexpected.

And you see that you’re missing some hidden critical component to this woman. And you get jealous.

Two. She is single and put-together. The modern woman. She also looks tired, but in another way from the wife. She works too much to pay for those perfect nails and that highlighted blonde hair. She applies makeup every morning, not out of habit, but because she likes to look pretty. But her phone is always ringing, and her voice is always dramatic, and her problems are always unique and seemingly unsolvable.

And at first you think, Thank God I’m not like her. One crisis after another. Climbing that corporate ladder. Her weariness is self-inflicted and possibly a little pathological.

But then you see her girlfriends. Her inner circle swarming around her like a cloak of indestructibility. And she is suddenly strong and you are suddenly jealous.

Three. She is wild. Not single, not hitched, but both at the same time. She has tattoos and earbuds that blare loud music. Any kind of music. Doesn’t matter. She wears jeans and cool boots and there’s a guy with her at all times. A guy who looks at her with lust as he gets all handsy in the checkout line.