It was about nine thirty in the morning when the sun crept in through the blinds and we sleepily crawled out of bed and got into my friend’s car. We were dressed in a hodgepodge of sweatshirts, leggings, flannel pajama pants, fuzzy socks, Birkenstocks, and flip-flops. Our hair wrangled by scrunchies into messy buns with stray hairs providing evidence of the hair straighteners and curling irons that they had endured the night before. Dark circles, messy eyebrows, and a thin sheen of sweat adorned our faces. In the wastebasket next to the sink in the bathroom you still could find our facades from the previous night, sitting on the makeup wipes in a series of colorful smudges.
We didn’t care anymore. Jewelry no longer weighed down our ears, our necks, our wrists, and our hands. High heels no longer tormented our feet, leaving behind blisters and red marks. I could rub my eyes without destroying my eye-makeup. Our baggy sweatshirts and sweatpants didn’t demand constant readjustments in the way that last night’s tiny dresses did. No one looked at us like we were a commodity as we walked into the Dunkin’ Donuts and we revelled in it. We all sat at a table together and enjoyed our iced coffee, breakfast sandwiches, and donuts unapologetically. We talked and laughed loudly about the last night’s dance. And on the ride home we belted Taylor Swift and bad 90’s songs at the tops of our lungs, no longer caring about what we sounded or looked like. Because it didn’t matter anymore; we had been restored as people and no longer felt like products.
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