About Someone Who Is Pretending to be Someone or Something They Aren’t

As she journaled in a diary of memories, experiences, and emotion, the turning of a page still felt in the pad of her thumb, Geraldine felt eyes all around her, watching her. Her heart raced. She was sitting in a cafe.

The cafe on NW 21st Avenue bustled with the expected business of a typical Friday morning; the sound of an avalanche of beans, the taste of brewed coffee stirring the air, the sight of passing chilly boots vibrating across the room. Geraldine’s senses raged and rebelled.

She took a deep breath as the caffeine of her should-have-been-decaf rupped through her blood vessels. I’m okay, this is good for me. She focused on this mantra, clinging to it in a desperate big to ground herself. I’m doing great. This is all okay. I’m okay. She operned her eyes, and the bustling crowd around her transformed – or, rather, her perspective shifted. She saw herself as just one of the many cafe patrons going about their business. She saw her own insignifcance. Was she so self-centered to believe everyone were watching her, judging her, reprimanding her in their minds? Did she think herself so important that anyone else gave a shit about her, that they wouldn’t forget her the second they left the cafe, if they hadn’t already done so? She realized all this in an instant, this indictment against herself. As she plead guilty, the crushing weight on her chest, the familiar pressure cracking her breastplate, lifted.

Having finished journaling, a natural transition feeling came upn Geraldine, and she resolved to continue her self-date, anxiety or anything else be damned. 2 o’clock. She told herself, stepping outside over the cafe’s threshold and peering at her watch, the cold late Fall air stealing whatever warmth her coffee had given her. Lifting her eyes and casting her gaze about this ghost-filled part of town she espied Artemis Books. Oh, yeah! She remembered, excitedly.

Bookstores are a happy place for her, where her internal noise never failed to quiet down, perhaps, like herself, getting lost in the towers and castles of books and finding other self-contained universes to torment. She hurriedly ran to the cool metal handle, seized it open, and succumbed to bliss. Even though she’d recently bought several more books than usual and thus wasn’t likely to buy something now, this was a form of adventure she loved. Her feet carried her to the non-fiction section, and within this, to the writing section. Here, her eyes darted along the spines, quickly trying to decipher if any title carried the content her heart craved and brain knew she needed. A sharp inhale of breath and fumbling of fingers. She devoured the title and scanned rapidly the pages flicking over her thumb.

The digital clock on the counter struck two fourty-five; still an hour plus til her movie. This last pit stop before the film was another coffee shop, this one calmer. Though Geraldine was resistant to setting foot in another today, she’d relented to the frustrating lack of tables or even chairs in most bookstores. She tucked that dream away for another day, ordered an *herbal* tea, and made herself comfortable in the most secluded corner of the already quiet cafe. She fished out her journal, pencil, eraser, and her new book. Her excitement unable to conquer the sense of obligation, she raced through the introduction of this new book and found the first prompt:

What are you waiting for? If not now, when?

And almost the instant she read this and copied the question into her journal, the answer smote her with a tsunami of emotion: so much.