first date
“When do you feel most like yourself?”
She paused, still smiling. It was a normal question, that normal people can answer easily. But being an overthinker means that coming up with answers is never easy and she thought about the last time she felt like herself which was so long ago, does it even count? In first grade she touched a piano for the first time, running her fingers up and down the keys, too scared to make a noise. But she took a leap, played a note, the sound sparked faith in her parent’s hearts that maybe they had a musical prodigy on their hands and suddenly there was a baby grand piano in the basement and lessons three times a week. She practiced for hours on end, diving into the music and getting lost with Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin. But of course, she had never felt like herself while playing because this hadn’t even been her dream it was her parent’s, so she quit and they all cried over the wasted time and effort and the nonexistent musical wunderkind and she realized that without piano she felt even less like herself but it was okay because she was only in eighth grade and there was plenty of time to find something else. So she did her homework and tried to be smart and got good grades but she knew that something was missing because there was no way that this was it, that this was all she wanted. If she got good grades she would have to go to college and get a job and get married and have kids and that’s what normal people want, right? That’s when normal people finally get to feel like themselves? So that became her new goal and she organized life plans on little notebooks with colorful highlighters, and made Pinterest boards all leading up to that special day, “I am me!” it said in neon purple, scheduled for fifteen years in the future. But this is all too much to tell him on a first date, she has to stay simple. She thought about after she had learned to drive when she would take the car out on empty desert highways with her friends, going 90 miles per hour and blasting classic rock songs until one day she broke the speakers, but she would still catch herself in those moments feeling empty and bored. And there was no way that she felt like herself when she was alone, because it meant that her authentic self was sad, lonely, needy for attention, wishing that she could be swept off her feet by some knight in shining armor. So she realized that she had never truly felt like herself, ever, but it’s time to answer his question because the smile is fading from her eyes and she can’t let him see inside her mind just yet.
“All the time! What about you?”
amelie cook
Amelie loves to read and write fiction stories, especially those about murder mysteries. She is a Taurus who lives up to her stubborn and materialistic reputation.