Fast Forward (Ella y él)

In my last post, I started in the present, jumped back over two decades, and ended at the beginning of the story. In keeping with this less-than-intimate relationship with linear time, tonight's post begins over five years after the last one left off.

Ultimately, chronology isn't that important to my story. Except sometimes. What's really important is context. Context is practically everything to what I am about to relate, for my story is one of a complete change of context, what annoying "postmodern" types who occasionally make me want to reconsider my views on gun control would polysyllabify to de- and recontextualisation.

Last time, I decided to back up a bit to give a brief account of my twenty-year stint amongst the men, Cliff's Notes on a guy who went to Europe and never came back. Today's instalment is about who did return from that stay on the Continent, and the world she found herself in.

Thinking about the world I've found myself in, I'm reminded of a line from the movie Pulp Fiction. In the scene that introduces us to Vincent Vega and Jules Winfield, played by John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, Vincent is talking about the highlights of his stay in Europe:

[VINCENT]But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?

[JULES] What?

[VINCENT] It's the little differences. A lotta the same shit we got here,
they got there, but there they're a little different.

That's as good a synopsis as any I could provide. Looked at on a macro scale, my days aren't very different from his days. I sleep in to the extent possible, get ready at either an exaggeratedly leisurely or breakneck pace, go to class (or don't), work (or don't), take the bus, wait (and wait, and wait) for the bus, talk to friends, go home, watch TV, have dinner, stay up till all hours, and then repeat it all the next day. All these are experiences he had on numerous occasions.

But as soon as you shift the focus a little, it becomes quite apparent that this is not his life.

While he and I get ready in the morning (OK, afternoon) at roughly the same pace, he took one-third to half as long as I do. He had a lot less to do. Fifteen minute shower, tie back hair, pick halfway clean clothing off of floor, throw on eyeglasses, get backpack, and out the door. A simple, mechanical process, generally combined with swearing at having to be awake.

I wake up, snuggle in the bed for a little while, channeling the sort of positive, warm, cozy emotions that make me feel a little bit better about actually having to do stuff. I moisturise, brush my teeth, take the meds that allow me to have a normal female hormonal balance, step into the shower and savour the hot water. I get my hair untangled, wrap myself in a towel, vaguely approximating the world's softest and fluffiest strapless dress, and spend the next thirty to forty five minutes doing my hair. Then comes makeup, which takes less time, but more concentration, followed by the perennial question: What am I going to wear? The sheer range of options and possible combinations makes this a very complicated issue, and, when going through my laundry, I'm often struck at how surprising it is that I manage to get dressed at all.

Things are still basically the same once I leave my apartment. I get cigarettes and coffee, and wait for the bus. The what is the same, but the how couldn't be more different. The people at the convenience store and the café know me, and we have a little light banter going whenever we see each other. I know pretty many of the people at the café by name, and there's always a little small talk. He wasn't one for banter. He preferred to get what he came for and get the hell out. Conversations with people he didn't know well were to be avoided, and smalltalk made him antsy. He maintained the sort of studied monotone and expressionlessness in these situations that avoids extraneous connection. I generally smile at people, and enjoy a spot of conversation as I go about my business.

Not only do I interact differently; people interact differently with me. It starts with who they see in front of them. Looking at old pictures, particularly from the last years, I see a guy pretty much at the end of his rope. Someone who'd given up and just let himself go. Someone who had totally withdrawn and didn't really see much point in any of it anymore. While I can't speak for anyone else, that certainly doesn't seem to be what people see these days. In any case, they see someone that inspires them to use quite a few terms of endearment, someone that old guys seem to feel sort of paternal toward, someone that inspires a sort of protectiveness in guys in general (apart from the wide array of creeps the average city has to offer) , and that women feel comfortable opening up to.

As similar as our two lives are, the experiences that characterise the things we do every day are vastly different. He lived alone. He never deeply connected with anyone, and spent most of his life keeping up appearances and distance. He never felt much of anything. That part of him just faded away. He knew he wasn't really a "he," but had no real idea beyond speculation of what it was like to be a "she." I, on the other hand, have a very rich and fulfilling life. I have close, supportive relationships with my family, a best friend with whom I talk about everything, and am building a life for myself. I look forward to a future, and enjoy my present. Not only are our experiences different; our minds work differently, functioning on a different chemical basis (more on this later). We are, in one sense, two very different people with two rather different lives, who happened to have shared the same body.