Who am I, there at the end of the bar?

When you’ve known someone a long time, or worked with the same people at the same place for years, when you’ve been married to the same person for decades and your children are grown and they have spouses who have been around awhile, every story you tell, they’ve heard before. I hate that.

 

When I pull up a story to back-up a point it’s, “mom we’ve heard all about that”. When my husband pisses me off it’s, “don’t go there,” he says, “I’ve heard that before”. My friends, my co-workers, “you already told us that story”, but they are polite, “go ahead and tell us again”. I hate that too.

It’s happening on blog posts now and in comments and even in my column. I have to recycle stuff because either I’ve lost my sense of observation or my life is just too damn boring.

I’d like to be the new kid in town for a change, the kid everybody is curious to know about. Growing up I lived in twenty-seven different houses and went to nine different schools, (a recycled blog post way back when I was Wry Wryter), so I know what it’s like to be the person people are curious about. Now, not so much; everybody knows just about everything.

What’s it like to be a stranger, to ride into town, slip into the local bar, sit at the end of the booze runway and watch the locals make asses of themselves? What’s it like to be an outsider? Considering how outsiders are treated these days maybe long-lived-local is better.  

Maybe it’s time I start telling folks about the side of me no one knows, problem is I’m not sure what that side is or even if it exists. Do we all have a part about us which remains hidden?

Let’s see, I’m afraid of the dark and I have a great story about why I am. If I’m brave enough I might write about it.