The Version of Myself I May Not Know

This is something that's been stewing in my head for about a week.

Even though I've been aware of this strange...I don't even know what to call it...a quirk? of mine, I really haven't seriously contemplated this strange phenomena that it seems that I've lived different lives through the years such that depending on when one first met me, they would never know that there may have been a different incarnation of myself not too far into the past.

The first time it was brought to my attention was my second year in college. It was once noted that in every picture I had in my dorm room as well as others' pictures of me, I would have a different hairstyle. That was also said when the style on my head was completely different from all the others in pictures. I took that as a compliment, because I liked changing things up. I also knew that a certain style more or less had a 6 month shelf life with me: I'd love it for a while, and if I had the time and money, I'd maintain it, but without thinking, I would need a completely new style in about half a year.

Once I was out of school and I had more responsibilities aside from worrying about how my hair looked, I would keep some styles a lot longer than usual, but when I would change out of a particular style, I would change it drastically.

Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, but throughout these metamorphoses, I would meet new people and build friendships with them. Sometimes I'd lose touch with them, and when I see them again, they'd be so surprised when they'd see my hair from pretty long from when they met me to super short. "Oh my God! You chopped all your hair off!" They would say, but I'd be surprised, because didn't they know that aside from that period of time I hung out with them was a strange phase when I didn't cut my hair and now I'm back to normal? Oh, I guess not.

More recently, I was at event and saw some friends whom I haven't seen in FOREVER. I went up to them to say hi, and I was a little heartbroken when they didn't seem to remember me. Then they recognized me and we hugged, but they said that they didn't know who I was because last time they saw me I had long hair and wore glasses.

I realized that I can keep track of when I met and became friends with people based on what hairstyle I was sporting at the time.

And then it dawned on me that it wasn't just about how I wore my hair. In the past 10 or so years, I can also group people I know based on what I was doing at the time.

I really became more aware of this last Saturday. Relics of my almost forgotten past were brought up to me TWICE on the same day. First was with Eva and our wonderful reunion after her return from Salzburg and my actual ability to be in the neighborhood and time to have to hang out with her. We did the talking, story telling, catching up, and then she asked me if I was still taking pictures. It is a completely harmless question, but it really made me think. I was happy to be able to say that I did a great deal of photographing the week prior when I went to Hawaii; other than that I hadn't properly photographed anything in well over a year.

When I met Eva, we were both newbies to the WAC program. Before we became friends (we became closer friends well after I graduated), we were aware of each other and appreciated each others' work, but she knew me as the anomaly WAC student who did photo installations and created non-dance performances. Soon I stopped creating performances completely and focused on photography, and she became one of the few people I confided in that one of the main reasons I quit my first real job was because I had plans to seriously pursue doing photography for a living. Needless to say, due to certain circumstances that was never really actualized and over two years after making that decision my taking pictures has boiled down to tourist snapshots.

The crazy thing is, there are people who know me now that don't and may never know that photography was such an important part of my life for so long.

That same day I was in La Verne to go pick up a desk at my uncle's for my roommate. Of course, we couldn't leave without something to eat, and it became a really nice moment to just sit there and chat with my uncle and just talk about things aside from the niceties that are exchanged when you see someone briefly or at a big family gathering. During that conversation, the subject of art came up and it was asked why my sister was no longer making any. More importantly, I was asked if I was still writing.

I guess I still am to some extent with the blogging and the Yelping and whatnot, but I knew exactly what he was talking about and I almost felt exposed when he said it, especially in front of my roommate who wouldn't know about what he was talking about. Even though those dreams were dashed a long time ago, I always had dreamed of becoming a writer. I thought I was fairly good at it, and I would win a contest here and there for submissions of poems. I'd write some interesting short stories as well, including one homework assignment of my cousin's where she had to adapt some fairy tales and I wrote them all for her, making her papa proud even though it was I who did it. He was particularly fond of my poems, and at the time, I was too; in the two years I had my favorite teacher in high school, the only time I'd get an A from him were from the creative writing assignments (of which he had very few). I was ashamed and sad to tell my uncle last weekend that my "writing" is something of the past, and though I think it would be nice to start up again, I think it's just not what I do now.

But what is it I do now?

How about my friends who will see me and ask me if I'm still working in the music industry and if I'm still in touch with so and so and go to punk shows? Or how about the people who ask me if I'm still running and when I'll do another marathon? How aobout my friends who ask me for tips on backpacking around Europe or just general tips on packing light and taking everything that you need on your back and just go? Oh, is that the same person who visited her cousin and her family in Princeton and while she was there, her cousin would tell her friends about her and they'd be envious of her pathetic, broke vagabonding life? How about that long forgotten of getting the LA EZ Pass that would allow me to take the Metro and most citys' municipal lines just so I can master the under appreciated (albeit slow) public transportation system the Greater Los Angeles Area actually has but many aren't aware of? How about that girl who had the bestest best friend in the whole wide world and they were practically joined at the hip, who knew each others' schedules and somehow sensed when the other was at home, and could tell someone exactly how they'd respond to certain things if someone else were to say it. Was aus am Besten Freund der Welt und ihrer Freundshaft geworden ist?

Those were all completely different people from a completely different time. Those, if not all of those people were incarnations that existed within the past 5-6 years.

I'm sure there are remnants of those people in me now, but what version of myself am I right now? What volume of my life am I now writing? Is it Volume 27: In Which She Succumbs to Adulthood and Responsibility and Gives Up Childhood Fancies ? Is it that book where a good day is marked by getting a great tax return that will immediately be put into my savings account where my car payments are automatically taken from? In which a triumph would be getting the necessary paperwork needed to overturn my initial denial of individual medical coverage from a company that has been carrying me for the past 5 years through work but can't get it on my own?

Who is this person? And more importantly, do I like her?