The shedding line

It's funny when you write something out and for a second you think what it would be like to be someone else.

This morning I wrote my name on a form and for whatever reason the first letter I wrote was "R." Raul. That's who I was this morning at 7:22am. For one second, one little line changed who I was completely. The difference between R and P is just one little line, I'd never noticed that before. The difference between being myself and being anyone.

I was the lead propagator of some android virus cover-up. Telling lies and getting things done for an ominous Regency in some dome isolated Utopian future. I was the guy you called when there was no one else to call. That's what the form said. I could've been anyone.

At least until I threw it out and started over.

It's rare that I express my true thoughts and feelings. Even here I find that I censor myself. That I tell, half-truths, or glorify things to the point I don't recognize them anymore. It's a form of escape I guess. A way of controlling my memories. I think this is something we all do. It's the answer when there is no answer.

Who I am today, who I am on this form, is not who I was three years ago. And who I was three years ago is not who I was three years before that. I have different friends, a different mantra, a different place to call home, a different person who shares everything with me.

People in my past -- friends, some of them -- I've left them. I don’t like this about myself but I tend to keep doing it. People come and go, and I'm no different. I've done my share of floating in and out of people's lives.

This is my confession: I use people until I use them up. They get tired of me or I get tired of them, they want something I can't give, I need something they don't possess. I change. They change. This is how I've lived my life. I am a sugar-coated asshole when it comes to other people. I start out good but in the end I'm not as sweet as you had first thought. I mean well but sometimes that's not good enough.

I think that if anyone takes a hard enough look at themselves, they start to see things they don't like. I'm no different.

Like a serpent I've shed my skin so many times, I'm starting to wonder if there is anything underneath. If there is a core, is it filled with nougat or chewing-gum? Both delicious when first put in your mouth, but after a while become tiresome to chew and eventually lose their flavor. I don't know. I don't know the answers. I guess the only solution is time. To watch and wait. To keep shedding until I find what it is I'm looking for.

It's so naive to think you'll know someone forever.

Even if that person is yourself.