Why I Attempted to Leap in a Single Bound to Say Hi Again, and Tripped Magnificently

 

by Aninka Lemasson

Dopio

 

It's been twenty years so my knowledge of her is social media buckshot. I don't know what her life is but I know what her bathroom art looks like from her weight-loss selfies, and about her most excruciating moment as a parent ­­– cautionary tale to the world

– and now we stumble upon one another.

 

Our reconnection is the worst of a rough draft: throat clearings, "weren't you the one?" down wrong-way streets, bridges to nowhere. We smile earnestly through our stumbles, badly wishing to re-align, honor the past, see one another as we are today. But there isn't time, or perhaps it's too much to ask of two introverts with one another's families front-loaded like reluctant jurors.

 

I am tired and hungry, which significantly dips down my character motivation. Our future is improbable. Because we are ill equipped to right this moment this is to be our new memory, perhaps our last. Except as I'm walking away I have second thoughts: what if... (emphasis on the what) we're superheroes, and this was where our origin story was supposed to begin?

About the author 

Aninka is an American writer married to a Frenchman. The difference between French coffee drinkers and American coffee drinkers: Americans carry their coffees around all day and take instagram pictures with them. French coffee drinkers down espressos AND MOVE ON.