thinking about that time a waitress told me I looked like her dead childhood best friend but I cant remember the face of the waitress nor who I was with and where when this happened. all I know is that I gave the girl a fright when she turned to serve a table and suddenly she is looking at a face from years ago. possibly one that is thought of often, or maybe one that is locked away and left for moments in solum.
now that I am thinking about it I am not positive the best friend is dead or not, but that does not matter. It should be known that regardless of the status of this best friend the young version of her in which I resemble so deeply, no longer exists. whether or not her current status is alive or dead- the teenage girl she used to be is dead. just as much as 12-17 year old me is dead in that restaurant.
As Ive written this over the past 2 or 3 minutes, I have remembered when and where this happened.
It was the waitress that frequently served myself from ages 12-17. At the taco shack a block from my childhood home- my favorite after-school activity- to get a large horchata and large fries. I would sit at the front window table, eat the free chips and salsa and listen to the outrageous newscasts drawling on for what seemed like forever. My character placement as an almost daily patron of this restaurant seized to exist when I left home. Coming back 2 years older with different hair and a roommate who never got to know the person I was to the staff just as much as they were to me. I would never expect them to remember let alone recognize me after years of body modification and hormonal evolution, but I recognize them. For all the people this newer/older version of myself could strike a reflection in but the waitress' childhood best friend. For her, someone who is not stationary to her life, as she no longer sees that version of her best friend she saw in me. But in my experience- she is the same for me. In my view of this restaurant and my place in the plot of their story- they have remained frozen in time. The inside of the restaurant will change, as the decor gets replaced for the more modern, more minimalist trend- the people remain the same. Though they age- they have not transformed. For in the 2 years of my absence- I was peaking to a level of evolution. Maybe they weren't- or if they were, it was not unrecognizable to me. This is a selfish point of view. Or maybe it is not and I just love to make a small moment bigger than it is. But is there not beauty in my doing so?
To be honest none of it matters at all to anyone- barely even matters to myself. There is simply something so special about a homecoming that goes unseen. The ability to see home, to return to the plot line of your beginning but to be seen as a new character.
to make a paragraphs worth of ruckus of this small interaction after only 2 years, I wonder if my documenting of this moment will rip it of it s value in 10 years- Will I care about this restaurant, if even less, this moment then?
A pass time of mine while back on the set of my adolescence, where I played the character of who I thought I needed to be while being closetedly weird in a small town. With my new visual paired with an updated outlook., I walk around-as I see old friends in passing, I make sure to acknowledge their staring. I have found that the stares I received back then were nothing compared to the stares modern me would be to undertake.
Now, with the memories of everything that happened between the years of 12-17, I recognize them all. Every face, every rude comment, and every gossip- the faces are burned in- I spent 3 years of high school memorizing the faces I could see in school, and life. Those may never go away- though sometimes I wish they did
anyway- I will forever stare back- while I receive confused stares like "I know them no I don't yes I do no I don't" running through their mind as I blank face stare right back.
there is something I find so powerful with this in recognition matched with ambiguity. I am not the me they used to stare at but I am a new version that may be even more worth the stare.
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