There’s Nothing Like Having Lunch With an Old Boyfriend, To Bust Your Self Delusions
How we view ourselves is often different from how others remember us
Will there be an uncomfortable silence?
Would we have anything to talk about? Would the past sit like an elephant in the room? Perhaps the only thing we had in common now was that we survived.
My worries were unnecessary. From the moment we both sat down, twenty-nine years disappeared in the blink of an eye. We weren’t teenagers anymore, chatting awkwardly after bumping into each other after our bust-up. We’d both moved beyond that.
Now, our shared memories created a bond, and it was easy to laugh again.
Ian started, “Do you remember —”
My true self, the one I always aspire to be, was the reckless, out-of-control person I was at nineteen. Because fuck, did she live.
At nineteen, I didn’t have a worry or care because I was going to die. My death sentence from winning the genetic lottery was a foregone conclusion. From guidance counselors to medical staff, everyone liked to ram my looming expiry date down my throat.
I could have dismissed that narrative and turned a blind eye. But I couldn’t ignore the revolving door of funerals I attended. One after the other, I buried my friends.
Tick tock. Tick tock.
So that left me free to act without consequences. Without the weight of tomorrow.
If I tried it and I liked it, I’d do it. Again and again. I wasn’t addicted to anything but life, coke (the fizzy kind!), and cigarettes, ’cause if the end was inevitable, why bother preventing it?
Besides, smoking and having a smoker’s cough were socially acceptable in the 90s. Coughing until you can no longer breathe because your lungs are diseased was not. Smoking was my camouflage. It allowed me to blend in. To appear ‘normal.’
I was wild. I was a firecracker. I was out of control.
But ‘out of control’ had its limits—no hard drugs. I’d push things only so far — and even as I pumped my lungs full of cigarette smoke, I’d take care of my health religiously. Because there was always a little niggle at the back of my mind. What if I am the one who defies the odds? What if I’m the one who can make it?
I had my dash of danger, but I was still in control. I was doing the driving — just in case I could steer this bus called life around a corner.
It’s a strange feeling to live like there is no tomorrow, yet still plan for the possibility. I lived with a secret hope.
Other than our age, there was another noticeable difference. The laughter flowed continuously — neither Ian nor I stopped to cough. We’re both counted among the lucky ones, saved by anonymous organ donors.
Ian shook his head at me. “Man, I was out of control. Melinda and Julie, they were out of control. I guess it’s what you expect, being a teenager with a death sentence. We were all as bad as each other.”
I nodded and smiled. Those were the days.
Ian looked at me, “But you — you were so far beyond out of control you were next-level.”
Wait, what? I’d been in control. I’d been driving the bus.
Ian continued, “No one thought you’d make it. We all thought you’d burn out early. And look, here you are.”
Self-delusional bubble successfully popped.
Is the image I had of myself at nineteen wrong? Is it only an illusion that lives within my head?
It’s said that the meaning of life is to reconcile one’s glowing opinion of oneself with the appalling things other people think about us.
I guess I have a lot of reconciling to do!
Sandi Parsons is an award-winning school librarian with over 20 years experience working in educational libraries. She lives with her favorite husband and two problem puppies.
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