If you're feeling low....

Just think about this.

My sisters and I have been doing this for as long as I can remember--dressing up, pretending to be someone else--usually our characters morphing into someone a good deal uglier and more decrepit than any of us really are.
I used to own some extremely tight, long underwear-type, red pajama pants with tiny penguins on them that made me look exactly like Tweedledum when I stuffed a pillow down the front. I had long skinny legs and was substantially awkward looking, and Koseli would force me to wear these almost on a daily basis and perform a routine for which I became quite famous in my family. My audience would watch as I would hobble slowly into the dimly lit room, hunched and dejected, with an old blanket thrown like a cape over my back and a purple parasol that I used as a cane in my hand. Sad music would be playing, Then, on cue, Koseli would turn up the music and flash the lights as the song took a sudden an unexpectedly raucous turn. I would swing my blanket-cape over my head and dance-- still hunchbacked-- until Koseli almost peed her pants from laughing. We called it 'the hunchy dance,' or something to that effect.
I know for a fact that it was disturbing for our poor mother to see her daughters acting in this way-- constantly stuffing up our bellies and drawing uni-brows on one another. Most girls wish to be princesses or fairies. My sisters had these wishes too, but at the same time we didn't mind dressing up like goblins or elves or very fat men, talking in ridiculous voices, or using our mother's makeup to draw well outside our lip lines. She would stand at the edge of the room, shaking her head and suppressing a smile. She seemed less entertained by our silliness than by how much fun we had together--shrieking with laughter and forgetting any of our real insecurities in the warmth and happiness that only true friends can share.