Prep

It felt like reading about my own life. One minute I was 22 years old, sitting at a table, legs outstretched, reading a novel as dusk begins to hang outside my window. The next I was 14 again, watchful, defensive, laboring to pin down the surrounding personalities. Had it really been this simple? I wondered, thumbing the pages of the book. Had the characters of high school been so easy to read? A boy farted when giving his book report, a girl tried unsuccessfully to stifle her laughter, I knew then that she was someone I could be friends with. I guess back then, we all wore our deepest truths on our sleeves because none of us had acquired enough guile to be exacting or worldly. The awkward mumbling was sharp and sudden, the glancing at watches was obviously fake. None of us had an understanding or command of our limbs and what they might do, what secrets they might betray, at any moment. So it was easy to just watch and grab hold of people's cores. One gesture, and I knew then that I could be friends with her, I knew then that she was a prissy bitch.

But was it really so clear? I only wish I was the kind of teenager who understood this clarity, who trusted what I saw before my eyes as reliable proofs of people's personalities and knew, consequently, that some of them were not worth knowing. As it were, I martyred myself into giving second chances, listening, abandoning friends, even soothing the pains of enemies. There was a whole problem of empathy, namely, that I had too much of it. And suddenly, I saw a girl in adulthood vacillating between worldviews, lifestyles, careers, politics, also for this same problem of empathy. It feels so complex and undecidable now, but would the choices eventually emerge as clearly as high school personalities (something I could be friends with, a politics so shallow, a mindnumbing career)? If so, would this revelation make me trust what I see, could I give up my desire to keep all the eggs in the air, could I watch some of them fall to the ground and break? Maybe I will end up juggling the wrong two eggs for 5 years, maybe I was wrong about the prissy bitch. But here's the thing, at least I would know it's okay to let some eggs break. I would juggle but I wouldn't be zealous about it, I wouldn't think the game itself actually mattered.

Flipping through the playbill of the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular in order to discard it and see space on my desk again. We saw the hokey Rockettes, their hundreds of legs kicking to music and in unison. Wait, turn back to the other page, the history of the show, detailed descriptions of each piece. Do I need to know these things? Oh, who cares. Suddenly driven by a desire to let it all go, I dumped the whole thing in the trash.