space between selves

I recognized the guy working at the smoothie place today. Last time I’d seen him, I was in high school, and he was the bass player in a Rochester punk band that eventually achieved a modest level of success. The band changed their name to something dumb, signed with a major label, released one album, had a single appear in a Madden game, and then, by all accounts, sort of imploded. I remember that guy from when I used to see the band play, before all of that other stuff started. Back then, he had seemed somehow large and important, a guy who had taken the dream that so many kids at that age have and was actually doing it. I wanted to be him, I remember.

I thought when I saw him that he would be sullen, or angry, taking this new job as a smoothie maker as a step down, but he was very polite, smiled as we talked a little bit; I didn’t tell him that I recognized him, and that was partially because, even though I knew who he was, I didn’t. He seemed lighter, happier. He had a lot of tattoos, but most of them were covered by the long sleeve shirt he wore. I often wonder what it would be like to get tattooed so young, and to have to live with their permanence after the time in your life in which they seemed absolutely necessary had passed. I don’t know if he was trying to cover them up, or if the long sleeve shirt was just his way of dealing with the ink.

Like perhaps he didn’t resent that former self, that maybe he was instead carrying those marks with some kind of pride, as if he used them as a way to measure the growing space between who he was and who he is.

We all different ways of demarcating the space between selves. I look at pictures of myself from high school and wonder who that person was and what he would think of the person typing this right now. Because it’s so easy to look back at our past iterations and he embarrassed or ashamed of how we looked, what we did, or what we thought, but those old selves are indispensable because they are lower rungs on the ladder leading us to where we’re going.

The next time I feel embarrassed about my former selves, I’m going to try to think of that guy, carrying his old, irresponsible ink with him with a smile, happy for who he is just then, relishing before because it got him to today.