I feel like a marshmallow.

Hovering over an open flame, expanding on the end of a pointed stick, crisped around the edges and sticky-melty-gooey within.

This image of myself has been sliding through my thoughts for the past few days. A slippery little feeling that I can't quite pin down. Could be that I'm approaching that time of the month. Could be the white puffy sweatshirt I was slumping around the house in the other day. Could be the smell of burning branches and leaves coming from my neighbor's fire pit last night - enjoying a bonfire in the midst of the unseasonable warmth. Could be any number of factors.

It's the life-long struggle of Me Vs. Myself. The logical, rational Mella and the one who wants to hide beneath a pile of blankets with half a gallon of ice cream and tell the world to go away.

I want to be invisible. I say mindlessly while flipping through a game of Skip-Bo with my husband, feeling all puffed and swollen and fighting the urge to pull my hair down over my too-round-face. But you can't be, I want to look at you. He says, shuffling the cards, peeking at me as I tip my head down to my arms and peek back.

I smile, but it's half-hearted. He's always sweet in trying to cheer me up when I'm being irrationally down. I ask if he has ever felt like a marshmallow. He hasn't.

While he stacks the cards neatly back into their box, I turn my words over again in my mind. I want to be invisible. They're familiar sounding. Have I thought them before? And as easily as that, a memory emerges. Clouded and dusty - one I've put in the far reaches of my mind and forgotten.

High School. I was attending a national conference for "The Leaders of Tomorrow" in the Hancock building in Boston. I was clearly not in my element - surrounded by boys in suit coats and button up shirts - girls in neat little skirts and sweater sets. All with ambition and drive oozing from their pores. I felt small and lost. I was only there because the representative from our school was chosen by an essay contest. And I wasn't one to turn down a writing contest.

I remember watching a power point presentation surrounded by Alex P. Keaton wanna-be's and regretting ever hearing my name called over the loudspeaker as the Winner.

This is where I first felt myself wanting to disappear. It was a hot little room crowded with teenagers lined in rows like a classroom and a speaker at the front with two whiteboards and a giant pad of paper. The speaker asked us to go around the room and introduce ourselves,row by row, seat by seat. There was the sound of clothes shifting, feet dragging, desks creaking - as all eyes turned to face the student at the first desk, and again as they moved down the rows. Faces turning. Feet shuffling. Necks craning.

I remember the eyes coming down my row - and the throbbing of my heart. My palms sweating. I wasn't listening to anyone else's names - I didn't care where they went to school, what sport they played, what colleges they were applying to. All I wanted to do was blink and make myself invisible.

Not only invisible. I wanted to be gone. An empty seat in the classroom. A lone girl wandering the city streets, heading for her train home. Gone.

Coming back to the table, my husband is still stacking the cards. I'm still slouched in the chair - and wondering why this feeling is emerging now, after years of feeling fine with being visible. My mind surges through a list of ways to fix myself. Go to the gym more. Drink more water. Get up from the table and do sit-ups. Now. Go. Do. Fix.

Instead, I push myself up from the table and come here. To type. To let myself feel what I'm feeling. I'm going to try not to over analyze or blame myself.

No, I'm going to just ride it out. Say shut-up to myself when I need to. And be invisible when I need to. Going forth with the knowledge that this too will pass.