…

I can do this thing. I call it putting on my “game face.”

I feel like I’m stepping into somebody else.

I don’t know how to really explain it. Game face me is all smiles and she knows just what to say. She’s quick on her feet. She knows all the stupid little small-talk quips that aren’t really anything. She can throw a funny barb right back at a customer and then laugh along and smile and joke. She bobs in and out of conversation threads, winding this way and that.

And I feel like I’m watching her. You know?

Like it isn’t really me.

Which is fucking ridiculous. I know.

I know i know i know i know

But it’s how I feel, even though it’s stupid. Feelings are usually stupid, I guess.

Look, I know the weird persona I step into, the one that’s confident and charming and great with customers and can mingle at parties…I know that’s me. I know it isn’t a costume. I know it’s me. It doesn’t feel like me though.

I feel like I’m watching someone else, standing behind her, and eventually people will notice I’m there and be very disappointed.

Also, I know that I’m real. I just don’t feel real. And I don’t exactly know what that means, but I’ll try to explain it.

I can see that I have a body, obviously. I know I have a past. I know I’m in the present. I say things and other people hear me and respond to me. I must be be real.

But I look at myself in the mirror and have this sensation like, “Well, look at you with your body and face and hair. You almost look real. You’re in a person costume” and I know that whatever intangible sort of innards other people have that make them real, I don’t have them. Whatever other people have inside of them that make them real, I don’t have it.

I know that and also I know that doesn’t make sense and it’s bullshit. So since it’s bullshit, maybe I shouldn’t even say it.

Sometimes I’m surprised by how real everyone else seems to think I am.

I guess I am real. I guess I am really here. I must be.

I am here. I am alive. I am. I guess.

I must be.