Her
We have all been her. I am her for someone. You are her for me.
…
We look at her and dissect the pieces, trying to distort them into something less than ourselves. First, we locate the similarities. We isolate and elevate the qualities we’re missing. Then, for balance, we exaggerate the negatives in an effort to make ourselves feel better. Better about her love — the love she experienced before us. We wonder if that love is still floating around like a specter in the heart of the man we’re currently haunting. This is our house now. Get out.
We burn incense, but the smoky image always clears and we see her again. We go looking for her, summoning her up to answer questions of the other side. We need her to vouch for our love. We think we can exorcise her from the heart we want to build a life in. We know this is impossible. We know, because we know we still live in hearts from the past. Not all of them, but at least one.
We are her at least once.
We are the coveted. The beautiful. The exciting. The talented. The witty. We are the better catch. At least once, we are the person someone else is looking for themselves in — drawing conclusions from our frozen happiness. We forget that although we are sometimes her to another, we are never her to ourselves. That’s good to remember when looking at her. That she is me. She is no longer the woman frozen in time — a still version of a person we love to softly torture ourselves with. She doesn’t exist. Just like our own pasts, that love has expired.
Knowing this, I still catch myself looking at her, and selfishly thinking of myself. I wonder if I could fill her void. I think to myself that I could. No, that I should. Am I not better? More beautiful? Intelligent? Desirable? I think that I am — my inner narcissist hungry to be fed. But we should all feel better than her. Not because we are, but because we aren’t frozen in time. We are the present. We might be the future too, but no matter what, we are definitely not the past. I tell myself to find solace in this revelation. I am more than a specter from a frozen memory. I am the possibility of what is to come.
…
I wrote this in 2016 and never published. I don’t even remember who the “her” is that inspired me. It makes me smile to know I’ve already forgotten.
