Shining Contradictions

“I just wanna let you know,” she says with a conspiratorial tilt to her head and a serious lift to her brows, “I’m not this person anymore—”

She’s said it a few times already today, as she’s weaved her tales, a mantra perhaps to reassure herself more than those who listen— Yes, indeed! The person who did those things was a child.

So why then, I want to ask, do you still brag about them? Why is the person you are now so proud of the person you were then?

She carries around her contradictions like a bauble for us all to admire. But instead of oohing and ahhing, we hmmm and hmmm, to which she will reply in an hour’s time: “Really, I’m not this person— Don’t get the wrong idea, but…”