Changeling
Constance Delarosa. I couldn’t get her name out of my head. I hadn’t thought of her for years, but something, or maybe someone, reminded me of her. Was it the garish red dress on the woman in the mall? Or the strange spiky brassy hair on the bustling sales woman in the dress shop? No matter. I remembered her because we had grown up together. Constance was shy, mousy and her social skills left a whole lot to be desired. Always carrying books or reading them. Straggly brown hair with one pink bow trying to hold it out of her eyes. That was when we were kids in high school. I didn’t see her for many years after high school and when I did I didn’t recognize her. Enter the red dress and spiky hair. Constance had changed ~ even her name. Constance had become Connie. We went for lunch that day. That had even changed ~ from the girl who ate only vegetables that had been cooked a certain way, she was now trying new foods. Sushi, never crossing her lips before, was her favourite ~ especially sashimi, with lots of wasabi and soy sauce.
We laughed and talked about those days of Constance and Wendy (that’s me). The serious part was what caused the change. “It wasn’t any great trauma, but loneliness and I was bored!” Black mascara tears traced Connie’s cheeks when she remembered the days in University after class when she watched all the others go out. There was some fun that she didn’t agree with, but she envied the laughter and closeness of her fellow students. So she started changing little things about herself ~ the time she went to bed, how she combed her hair (she got rid of that horrid pink bow). She copied the so-called popular girls in how to dress and how to talk. “Changing my life has not been easy.” And then Constance Delarosa smiled through her tears. “But it sure has been fun.”
“I’d rather be a little weird than all boring”
~ Rebecca McKinsey
No comments:
Post a Comment