reflections and illusions

One night in mid-July I went out with the derby girls, even though I knew I shouldn't. One drink and an hour turned into many drinks and 1 a.m. by the time I got on the train and into a pseudo-philosophical discussion with Pink about the nature of small talk. "So your impressions of people are pretty much accurate based on your initial conversations?" He said they were, and I wanted to delve further, but we were at his stop already. The next was mine, by default, since the L train wasn't running all the way down the line. I got out and started walking, my mind pinballing from one random thought to the next, unedited for once.

When I got home I picked up my mail and saw an envelope from my aunt, stuffed with cute little illustrations and sayings, just because. For fun. Mixed in was a picture of me from 1993, rounder and smiling geekily with a bad haircut and too-large glasses, photocopied onto manila paper. She'd written on the back, "Except for the glasses, you haven't changed!" And I was terrified.

In contrast: a month before, I stood next to a cute and surprisingly interesting boy I'd vaguely known off and on for seven years. We kissed for hours, and the next night too. The first night was nice; the second was better. We'd barely remembered each other from those meetings over the course of years, but still, when he paused on the second night and took my face in his hands and held my gaze and said "God, I don't remember you being this sexy," it felt wonderful. I wanted it to be true. And I laughed and turned my eyes away and said, "I wasn't."

Are we the same or have we changed, subtly or drastically? Who's right, I wonder? Who knows you?

I want my friends to call me out. I want my friends to tell me hard but kind truths about all the things I might be deluding myself about. When I say "I never felt this way before," I want them to read me chapter and verse from the email I sent detailing exactly how I felt this way before. When I say this is different and kismet, I want them to point to coincidence and similarity. When I say he will come back, I want them to tell me what they know.

It's funny - I never consider that they are already telling me the truths, and that the truths might not be hard at all. That they might have no more insight or knowledge than I. That they might believe what I say more than I do.

Always in negatives. That's the problem. Can we ever know ourselves.

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