Her heart stopped for just a second.

Then it restarted – it could not be gone.

She was sure of that.

She never used it, but she ALWAYS carried it.

She calmed herself and then methodically emptied her handbag out onto the chair in the changing room.

It wasn’t there.

She went through every pocket and zippered section.

It wasn’t there.

She checked the handbag for a tear in the lining that would have allowed it to slip through and get trapped between the lining and the leather.

It still wasn’t there.

She wanted to cry.

It was just a small thing, a little pocket mirror, backed with pewter and decorated with enamel leaves. It came in a purple felt pouch.

It could not be gone.

She remembered the day Ray gave it to her. It was Christmastime and she’d been surprised because she and Ray, while friendly, had never exchanged gifts. That was the only time.

“I saw this, and just thought ‘Jess should have this’, so I got it.” Ray had explained.

She loved it. She wasn’t sure why.

She did not spend a lot of time looking in mirrors. She could count on just a few fingers the number of times she’d actually used the mirror. She hadn’t used it for years. But she always carried it.

Somehow, it seemed to her that if she looked into the mirror she would see the woman she had been then. Bright, happy, courageous, funny.

Maybe that’s why she’d not used it for years – she was afraid of what would happen if the mirror reflected back to her the woman she had become. Tired, constricted…..empty.

The mirror could not be gone – it just could not be. If the mirror was truly gone, then there was no chance of ever getting back to Her. The real Her. The missing Her.

She wondered when it had happened.

Her closet used to be filled with fun, funky clothing, full of colour. Pieces that she’d picked up at car boot sales, and little shops off narrow crooked alleys that seemed to disappear as soon as she left them.

What had happened?

She’d tried to be someone else, that’s what had happened.

She’d felt….dimmed. Like the hurricane lamps her mother would use when the electricity went off. Slowly, every year, dimmed just a little bit more, until she did not give off enough light to find her way by. Soon now, the final turn of the handle and her flame would go out completely.

How had she let this happen?

How could she stop it?

She stared at the woman in the changing room mirror.

She sighed. Her grey roots were showing. Time for……

…a change.

She put everything back into her handbag, handed the clerk the five navy blue suits she’d intended to try on and walked out of the store.

Directly across the street was a salon and she went in before she could change her mind.

“I’d like to make an appointment for a cut and colour, please. I need a change.”

Miraculously, they’d just had a cancellation and could take her in 15 minutes, if that suited.

It suited her grandly.

There was discussion around colour and she couldn’t decide.

Then one of the stylists came in from the back room – she had blindingly bright, highlighter pink hair.

“That!” she said. “That’s the colour I want.”

“Are you sure?” they asked.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything. Go for it,” she replied.

As the pink went on to her head, she was already mentally decluttering her wardrobe. There would not be much left when she was through. And that felt great.

One of the clerks from the store she’d just been in entered the salon.

“Excuse me,” she said, approaching Jess. “This was left in the changing room. I think it might be yours.”

She was holding out the purple felt pouch.

Jess could feel the weight of the mirror inside.

“I thought I’d lost this! Thank you so much.” The clerk left.

Taking a deep breath, Jess took the mirror out of the pouch and looked into it.

She grinned.

There she was!