From inside the washer I heard the doorbell. I had been deep in my own thoughts and bent half inside the washer trying to get the last wet socks from the bottom when it rang. In a moment it registered, oh, doorbell.
Up the stairs I went wondering what it would be. UPS, neighbors, some door to door peddler wanting to sell me weak cleaning supplies or magazines that never arrive. I never imagined it would be my past standing there looking in the window.
I opened the door and he automatically began his pitch, trying to sell my something I didn't want. I simply stood there staring at him. Shocked and yet amused.
I had changed.
Over the years I had made a break from it all. Rather dramatically, I'd walked away from my life, just left, went to a new place and began again.
The pattern of my life repeated. It seems I had forever been leaving a place and leaving my identity with it. Moving in and starting over.
The difference was this time, I really thought I had changed. Changed for real. Become someone I wouldn't abandon with another move.
When time and life conspired to bring me back to one of those towns I'd left a life in before, I took the challenge and moved. The difference was this time, I packed up who I was, who I had become and took her with me.
When I got to the new place and unpacked, I unpacked her too. I put her on like a familiar sweat shirt and took my place in this new beginning.
Years went by and I always knew it was possible. After all, the cliche's in life ring true, it's a small world and I was bound to bump into someone from before at some point.
I just never imagined my past would literally come knocking at my door.
But there he stood.
Talking and rambling and selling, shifting foot to foot, smiling and charming, just like days gone by and for a moment, my heart leaped. I won't lie and say it didn't. It did. A little hop for old time sake. Standing there in the sun he cut a fine line and the sale as smooth as any I'd ever heard roll out his mouth.
But just as a summer cloud washes over the sun for a breath, my mind blinked and I became myself again, my new self and I spoke.
"Scotty?"
"Is that really you?"
"Um, yeah, my name is Scott. How did you know?"
"Are you still working at the Dragon Lair?"
"Uh, no...I haven't been there in years. Do I know you?"
"I worked with you there, Scotty, for years. You don't recognize me?"
"No. Are you sure?"
"Oh yeah. I'm sure. I was there when Frank was manager, then Jimmy and Chris and Adrienne and, you really don't know me do you?"
"Sorry, just not really familiar. So do you want to buy this or what?"
"No, no, sorry. It's my policy not to buy door to door."
Closing the door and walking away, I was stunned. Had the years been that hard? Was I that fat and gray that I was unrecognizable?
It dealt a tiny blow to my ego, realizing that all those years of nights in the bars with this group of people I claimed as my friends were really nothing. If I couldn't be recognized a mere 3 or 4 years after the days ended, I could not have really meant anything then.
Reality is like sunlight on the water. It glimmers and sparkles but it gets sucked under into the blackness of the deep and it's gone.
All those drinks. All those dollars. All those parties and hours and laughs and tears. Nothing.
Nothing memorable to anyone but me.
No comments:
Post a Comment