Existentialism on your living room floor

I was at a family friend’s the other day,

sitting on their clean, fluffy rug

while memories played across the TV screen.

The videos had this strange look about them, the camera quality not exactly bad, but lacking the usual sharpness I've come to expect. Blurred around the edges,

like the film was covered in a layer of dust.

It felt whimsical rather than dirty.

I dance across the screen, with a face I don't remember and a body I don't own anymore.

A friend sitting next to me — a girl I barely speak to,

but someone I used to stay up late with — says,

“Oh, I remember this.”

You do?

I stare at the TV screen, feel the floor disappear from beneath me.

It’s me — I am told it’s me — but I remember the assembly hall better than I remember the girl standing in it.

I don't know who she is. I don’t know who her best friend is. I don't know what she wants to be when she grows up. I don't know how she feels about herself, her face, her hair or eyes or body.

She is six

and I am fifteen years separated from her.

Seven years for my cells to replace themselves,

I have been somebody else two times over since I’ve been her.

Another video gets played.

And then another.

The friends and family around me get up and leave, walk in and out of the room. A party goes on around me but I am pinned to the floor.

I don't remember her.

She is dancing, dressed up in a costume,

and I know I would hate all those cameras pointed at me but I don’t know if she minds.

I want to talk to her.

I want to ask so many questions.

I imagine her saying something profound, something beautiful and naive.

I want to ask her what her favourite movie is.

Her favourite song.

I want to sit in a room and listen to her talk for hours and hours.

And then maybe I would know her.

Maybe then I would feel like we are the same person — like I am more than this moment, sitting on someone else's floor, untethered from myself, my past, and the people around me.

Maybe I wouldn’t feel weird when people ask me about her.

Maybe I could tell them about the girl I used to be.