Beautiful Ugly

by Alice Feeney

Marriage is made of a million beautiful and ugly moments stitched together into a shared tapestry of memories, all of which are viewed and remembered slightly differently, like two people staring at the same painting from opposite ends of a room.

I do what I always do after meeting someone I like. I replay the conversation in my head, reliving all the moments I wish I could change, hoping I wasn’t quite as awkward as I fear I might have been, and thinking of all the things I should and could have said better.