Shouldn't…but Do

We met up in the bathroom, I knew she would be there. The Expensive Lawyer. The Neighbor, bless her heart, was there too.

Bathrooms, generally speaking, are places where spent energy naturally takes final form. An initial setting somehow appropriate for a day at court.

Bathrooms are great levelers. Basic human needs, elimination, cleanliness, fleeting vanity. Looking down, flaming pink, pale pink and maroon painted toes. Toes say a bit about a gal, you will have to guess who had which.

Few places rival bathrooms for frank disclosure, even among strangers. Kitchens compete, bedrooms cannot compare, but bathrooms – life stories spill, grief, elation in shared tension, tears wiped off, lipstick reapplied, shoulders up and out the door with a stronger smile. Relieving yourself, bathrooms are good for it.

On this day though, a meeting of three different women in a bathroom – one protecting her children, one to hold her hand, one to speak for her. Necessity, containment, expression. It works.

As it happened, this triumvirate held sway in courtroom 2B. A hungry ghost, the Confused Soul will, sooner than later, seek to digest again, and we three will meet again. More good energy flushed away, but it is, as they say, what it is.