It might look like I have a huge selection of clothes, I don’t. I have several different sizes ranging from twelve to even a few eighteens. When my hand runs over the dress, I go still, this is it. I’ve loved this dress since I first bought it almost three years ago. It’s a long sleeve crepe sheath dress in deep chocolate with a boat neck that ends a few inches above the knee standing. I love how I feel in this dress, the way it clings without looking like it’s too tight to my body. I smile, it looks good on me. I slip on matching chocolate suede booties in a stacked heel. Not bad, not bad, at all.

While I’m waiting for my breakfast sandwich to be finished in the microwave, I catch my reflection in the door. For the first time in ages, I wish I wore makeup. The only makeup I own is mascara and three tubes of lipstick, all of it so old I’m sure it’s expired.

My mom firmly outlawed makeup telling me, and my sisters, beauty was from the inside out. The one time my father found me with lipstick when I was a teenager he was so sad I threw it away and never thought about it again. Until I gave into peer pressure from a roommate. There was other makeup she urged me to get, but the only things I couldn’t mess up were the lipstick and mascara.

Felix headbutts me, demanding attention. He knows I’m agitated and doesn’t like it. I pick him up and give him a cuddle. Felix meows, long low muttering meows that tell me he’s very unhappy with me. Three years ago, a fluffy Maine Coon kitten fell out of a trash can in front of me and scared the hell out of me. It was love at first sight for me, it was love at first offer of food for him.

He’s a cranky cat with the disposition of an old man unless there’s food in the offering. He’ll, of course, be willing to forgive me if I share my breakfast with him. That’s not happening, once my coffee is done I put down Felix, wash my hands and start fixing my coffee.

I’m too nervous to eat the whole sandwich, I just needed something in my stomach to drink my coffee. I badly need the caffeine, I hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. The whole weekend was filled with tears and stress.

My last day at Miller Investments was anti-climactic. Although I had several people come by to tell me goodbye and they would miss me, no one even halfheartedly talked about staying in touch after I left. I still can’t believe how easy it was to say goodbye to a place I’d gone to nearly every day for the last eight years.