/ Die Coping

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

I have a theory; what I want to say is that I have a perfectly rational theory about these endless names that roll in and out like marbles, that I do not remember people because I am so ambivalent about being remembered myself.

“Your face seems so familiar. I meet so many people at these things.”

Of the few individuals more sensitive than a storybook princess, I can say that even behind 20 walls I could feel the uncomfortable stare of a single individual, and spend a restless hour trying to look occupied, when all I am doing is wondering when it will stop.

I tried to let go of a few odd behaviors, and with mixed success I let go of at least a few. In the hallways where there are dozens upon dozens of faces, most, I tell myself, likely with accompanying names, I let go of one. I can now walk with my gaze forming a perfect right angle with the line of my body, my gaze a perfect parallel to the path in front of me, and when that gaze meets with another, our lines of sight, our erect profiles and the distance on the ground beneath us might form a rectangle, depending on her height, a square once we draw nearer. I used to do no better than triangles in these situations, sometimes complete circles as I did a figurative 180, thought better and came back around after a moment or two.

Along the sidewalks, it is still like it has always been, when I am faced with a crowd of one or two people, I will hit the crosswalk button for both directions, check my phone for messages, and jog my memory for names that I know I threw out almost upon receipt.