I literally just posted a blog five minutes ago, but I immediately felt the need to write something a little more lighthearted, so here we are.
In my opinion, running into someone I knew when I was younger is one of the all-time weirdest experiences. They always completely clash with the image I've been mentally hoarding of them, because obviously they've been growing up just as much as I have. Though I am aware of this fact in theory, it is still a surreal thing to realize that kid who concocted a plan to disprove Santa Claus with me is now a drug dealer. The boy who would only talk about squirrels for a year was recently arrested for shop-lifting. The little girl who ate glue has an STD. These are facts that are quite difficult to compute; it is within these scenarios that I find reality most jarring. I try to remind myself to think of people complexly, but putting these images of people side by side can be a little shocking. When I wasn't privy to the gradual stages that turned them from the children I knew into angst-ridden teenagers, it seems almost impossible that they're the same people. A girl who I knew in kindergarten is pregnant, and though it is completely illogical, my first reaction went along the lines of, "What?! She's pregnant? But... she's only five!"
Maybe the people I knew as a child are just especially fucked up, but I think this phenomenon has probably occurred for everyone. I wonder how I measure up to the image people retain of me as a child?
Good question.
ReplyDeleteI think about that sometimes, too.