Walking down memory lane part 2: Have I really changed this much?
Huh- title but no post. time to try this one again I guess.
So I went home for the wedding, as any of you who read this blog will know. Perhaps the one comment that came back the most from the flock of people that I ran into every day for a week was of how much I had changed.
This forces me to reflect: Have I really changed that much in the last 7 years? There are some notable differences, sure- but enough that people feel this incessant need to comment on it every time they see me.
Let's see: Physically, a lot of the same- I'll post my grad picture when I get home along with a recent pic from the wedding. I look older, maybe not wiser, certainly not as thin (SADNESS) but nonetheless, i'm the same person. Huh- I somehow don't think that's what they are referring too.
There are certainly a great deal of changes in terms of my lifestyle- I'm still a student, but an older (and hopefully better) one. I can drink LEGALLY now- priviledge that I indulge in more than I should, I still walk to work/school- but if I could afford it, I TECHNICALLY COULD drive there, I'm no longer dating my long time highschool sweetheart- but that was over by the time I graduated.
So what is the change? To tell you the truth, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that when people disappear for a long time, people create images for themselves of how that person used to be. Often it is largely glorified or inacurrate- kinder or crueller than it should be. If you were to ask someone to describe a kid they knew in highschool that they hadn't seen in 10 years, they likely would remember them differently than they actually were- particularly if they only knew them a little bit.
Katrine-Anne, as these people from the past knew me, no longer exists- she has become a relic of the past- a figment of their imaginations. They can not understand or process the differences that can occur through the years- they weren't there for all the long and difficult moments of tragedy or of glory. I have become to them a portrait frozen in time.
It was very strange to have to give a 7-year-long update to the question of "what have you been up to?". Where do you begin? Well, since I've moved away I have attended university, met people, broken up with them, been sick, gotten better, gone to school, left school, went back to school, etc. It's really quite the monologue when you think about it.
Though I wouldn't say that any of these conversations were unpleasant persay, it was a little disconcerting to think that, to an entire community, I am still 18 years old and bound for a great career as an opera singer. Many of them couldn't understand why I would leave music "behind" (explaining that I just don't want to do it professionally is not an acceptable answer....you can't be an amateur singer.) for an undecided career in poliics (you can't do anything with a poli-sci degree that is not "politics"-another fact I learned up north).
I miss home- I miss the people. But I certainly got the hard wake up calll that you can never really go back.
Zita
So I went home for the wedding, as any of you who read this blog will know. Perhaps the one comment that came back the most from the flock of people that I ran into every day for a week was of how much I had changed.
This forces me to reflect: Have I really changed that much in the last 7 years? There are some notable differences, sure- but enough that people feel this incessant need to comment on it every time they see me.
Let's see: Physically, a lot of the same- I'll post my grad picture when I get home along with a recent pic from the wedding. I look older, maybe not wiser, certainly not as thin (SADNESS) but nonetheless, i'm the same person. Huh- I somehow don't think that's what they are referring too.
There are certainly a great deal of changes in terms of my lifestyle- I'm still a student, but an older (and hopefully better) one. I can drink LEGALLY now- priviledge that I indulge in more than I should, I still walk to work/school- but if I could afford it, I TECHNICALLY COULD drive there, I'm no longer dating my long time highschool sweetheart- but that was over by the time I graduated.
So what is the change? To tell you the truth, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that when people disappear for a long time, people create images for themselves of how that person used to be. Often it is largely glorified or inacurrate- kinder or crueller than it should be. If you were to ask someone to describe a kid they knew in highschool that they hadn't seen in 10 years, they likely would remember them differently than they actually were- particularly if they only knew them a little bit.
Katrine-Anne, as these people from the past knew me, no longer exists- she has become a relic of the past- a figment of their imaginations. They can not understand or process the differences that can occur through the years- they weren't there for all the long and difficult moments of tragedy or of glory. I have become to them a portrait frozen in time.
It was very strange to have to give a 7-year-long update to the question of "what have you been up to?". Where do you begin? Well, since I've moved away I have attended university, met people, broken up with them, been sick, gotten better, gone to school, left school, went back to school, etc. It's really quite the monologue when you think about it.
Though I wouldn't say that any of these conversations were unpleasant persay, it was a little disconcerting to think that, to an entire community, I am still 18 years old and bound for a great career as an opera singer. Many of them couldn't understand why I would leave music "behind" (explaining that I just don't want to do it professionally is not an acceptable answer....you can't be an amateur singer.) for an undecided career in poliics (you can't do anything with a poli-sci degree that is not "politics"-another fact I learned up north).
I miss home- I miss the people. But I certainly got the hard wake up calll that you can never really go back.
Zita
posted by Zita Dube @ Friday, July 22, 2005
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