"Jane"

"Jane"

The way some people tried on clothes, I tried on identities. At coffee shops, I was Lavender, who wore wire-rimmed glasses and sat quietly reading her book over her foaming latte soft curls tucked into a messy bun. At karaoke, I was Izzy, her vivacious personality and enormous bubble that engulfed everyone around her and took them for a joy ride. In dark alleys, I was Natasha mystery coated with just a touch of darkness which was two steps ahead of her pursuers and on the heels of her next victim. The list went on and on, but I think my favorite was Amelia Rosenburg.

And Amelia Rosenburg was exceptional.

This is precisely why Amelia was her favorite. Amelia was gracious, poised, and exuded a sense of power and success. Every line of clothing and hair was crisp, clean sharp as if she had materialized off the cover of Vogue. She was surreal. When Amelia walked down the street, people noticed they stopped mid-conversation, heads turning because she was had a face people thought they'd seen in a movie or a magazine. But there was a glint of something in her eyes, a touch of chaos perhaps but more mystery. Like you would never hear her lie, but she wouldn't tell you the whole truth either. Amelia thought secrets were fun, and people thought it fun trying to learn her secrets. 

If it were Lavender walking down the street, people would not have turned and gawked, but Lavender wouldn't have noticed if they did. Lavender was a dreamer. She stayed distant in the far reaches of her imagination no matter how physically present she was. Lavender drifted afloat in a sea of her own creation where the improbable became possible. She remained in a world of magic, romance, crime, and passion but reality just wasn't Lavender's cup of tea. The truth was dull and unromantic. There was also no guaranteed happy ending. The uncertainty of that bothered Lavender the most. She also found reality a little overrated, so Lavender wasted as little of her time in it as possible. Lavender had never understood the fascination with reality. Just in the way that Amelia never understood how someone could absorb themselves with ink-stained pages and words conjured up by someone's imagination. 

And then there was Natasha.

Natasha, well, she could care less. She had much more important things to handle than the materialistic wonders of Amelia Rosenburg's world. She couldn't sit still long enough to immerse herself in Lavender's dreamscape.  

Natasha embodied that small part of a person who just wants to abandon all care about other people's opinions and do what you want. That small secret part of someone that just wants to laugh in the face of obstacles and forge a path free of the will and judgment of others. It was unique to embrace a bluntness that many found offensive. She was not repulsed by her darker side, which appalled many, but she was not ashamed of herself when she saw the darkness of the world reflected in herself. She saw herself with an honesty that crippled her ego and produced genuine self-reflection. And because she had made that glass so clear, she could see what had to be done to be the best version of that self. To see past what the world expected of her and onto what she expected from the world. Natasha was dark. She was sharp in places. Natasha should be soft and lax in areas where that should be strict. But at least she didn't sand over her sharp edges and pretend they wouldn't draw blood if prodded.

And most importantly, they were all lies.

I have always been an excellent liar.  

I learned from the best.

  My parents used to tell me lies all the time. About where we were going and why we were changing our names. Why they always seemed to panic and move again when we had just settled into a new place. So I built an identity to fit all the places I'd settled into. It completely eliminates the possibility of bullying when you can just become someone who wouldn't be bullied. And if an identity got in trouble, then you could just make a new one. The more I did it, the better I got. Mainly since we never stayed in one place for very long. 

Each time they said, here will be our new home.

How many homes can you have? Or is there a cutoff, and you can only have so many before they just become houses?

Natasha doesn't think you can have more than one, but Amelia Rosenburg believes you can have a hundred if you wanted to. I don't think, so Lavender particularly cares. I have consulted the others, but they don't stand out as sharply as my core three. Even though I have vague recollections of who they are, they seem flat two-dimensional rather pale. So I have narrowed it down to my favorites. The rest I haven't been long enough to make an impact on me.

It seems strange to think most people only get to be one person. What if you get bored of them? Do you change, or do you learn to love it? It seems like such a permanent decision to change who you are. Unless it happens by surprise. Then I imagine it's terrifying to one day wake up and look in the mirror and not recognize your face even though the flesh and bones are the same. I imagine it's not easy to go back if you are dissatisfied. It would be so much easier to just be more. More than one more than two as many as you need. Your options are as big as your imagination. I have always had an imagination, except when I am Natasha, she is pretty pragmatic.

I am guessing by now you are a little confused. I am sitting on the floor in an unimportant room with a drab carpet and dim lighting surrounded by all my driver's licenses in a city of little importance.

I haven't counted how many I have because it would take too long, and they are waiting on me.

They figured me out.

And now I have to pick one.

Just one.

And that's who I am forever. No going back, no making more. I asked for help once. The buffoon told me to find the original. Like I'd know where she would be. I can't remember her even if I tried. She has been buried so deep under so many layers it would be impossible to find her. It would be as impossible a task as separating the layers of sedimentary and igneous rock of the grand canyon to see its foundation.

But I have been found out, and I have to pick one and stick to it. And it is so hard because I love them all, and it is such a permanent decision, and they tell me I can't keep creating new ones anymore. So I have narrowed it down to three.

Amelia Rosenburg. Lavender. Natasha. My favorites; the others are stuffed in a couple boxes to my left to be shredded once I decide.

The sunlight slides in through the blinds in front of me, casting strange stripes of light and shadow across the floor, slowly moving as the time drags on.  

Just one.

It is overwhelming.

Exhausted, I flop on my back and stare at the boxes of discarded license places to my left.  

I blink once, surprised. Tucked snuggly between a box and the wall is the off-white laminated corner of a driver's license.

I had missed one. And if I hadn't been so frustrated and overwhelmed, I might have missed it entirely.  

Making my way over, I looked at the card staring at the name printed there in official government-issued letters.  

The coffee shop was familiar, but I felt like it shouldn't be. I felt as if I knew just as much about myself as the strangers here sipping and working.

I don't remember much about that first day with my new identity, my clean start. Still, I do remember the barista asking, "And can I get a name for the order?"

And I remember I had never made an identity for the license I was holding now. I didn't need to; she was me. I had forgotten who she was exactly, but the essence of her remained untainted. The irony was almost unbearable; someone I had pretended to be, was actually the real me at one point in my life. The one identity that would be mine for the rest of my life. All the spirling lies had circled me back to the truth. I have some holes in my memory of her. But what was the harm in figuring out along the? I didn't have to figure out everything all at once; this wasn't a race.

So smiling at the barista, I said, "Jane."