Possibilities

Or at the very least, my own backyard.

There comes a time in every short Jewish gal's life when she looks in the mirror, screams briefly, and sees someone different. Her face looks weary. Her eyes look tired. Her hair looks unreasonably flat. When a gal, a short Jewish gal, let's call her the SJG, looks in the mirror and sees her own punim reflected back, as opposed to someone else's punim, say, Christie Brinkley's, that short gal starts to wonder if she can still be the same carefree short gal she used to be. Fine, she was never carefree, but her cares were so different. Is it possible to be the same person she was a year ago, pre-Pandemic, before she wore this mask, that mask, oops, that's your mask, not my mask? Can she look in that mirror, which needs a strong blast of Windex, and admit that she can't keep wearing the same mask, three weeks in a row? With all the wisdom she's acquired, not to mention all the hand sanitizer, can she continue to be the same gal she was before Sir Blakey telepathically inquired, "Why don't you ever leave the house?" Can she boldly go to Gelson's and remember it used to be her happy place, her homeland, and not the place where Insta-Carters block the aisles and she fears for her life? Of course, she can. She can and she will. At some point, there'll be some version of normalcy. Don't ask her when. She doesn't know. She hasn't even had her first vaccine. But anything's possible.