Crystal

Of all the folks I could have run into, in all of the places, I wouldn't have expected it to be her. I was pretty sure she had dropped off the face of the planet. Or maybe she was in jail somewhere. Certainly, I didn't expect to find her where I did, but we walked right into each other. 

"You look so familiar," she said, beaming. "I remember you!" Then, she told me who she was. 

Crystal. 

I looked right at her for a minute, straightened my face, stared into her eyes, and said, "Oh yeah. ...You used to beat me up all the time." Then, I just continued to look right at her. 

She recoiled a bit, shocked that I would say such a thing. "No," she said, waving her hand, as though I had gotten it wrong. "I was the quiet kid." 

No, ma'am. You were not. 

You were the kid who made up vicious rumors about everyone who didn't fit your mold. You were the kid who spread malicious messages about anyone who didn't bow to your authority. I didn't wear makeup. Didn't wear dresses. Didn't care about all the vain things that teenage girls are typically into, so you, ma'am, made it your daily mission to tell the entire population of our high school that I was trash. 

You followed me around, catching me around corners I never would have suspected you. You followed me out the doors at the end of the day. You shoved me, knocking me off balance because of the weight of my backpack (which, by the way, you never carried yourself). You took several swings at me. And the one day that my mom drove her car down the street to pick me up, solely for the purpose of protecting me from you, you leaned your head far into the driver's window, across her lap, and sneered, I'll get you tomorrow, *****. You can't hide behind mommy forever. 

Neither my mother nor I have ever forgotten that day. 

And yet, somehow, you seem to have blocked out an entire four years, at least, of your own existence. That is some impressive kind of denial right there. 

I wouldn't have imagined that of all the persons in all the places in all the world that I would ever run into you again, but here we were. And it makes me think. 

It makes me think about the things in my life that I'd rather forget. My worst moments. My bad seasons. My brokenness that made me do things that weren't consistent with the way that I want to remember myself. It makes me wonder the kinds of memories that others have of me and whether I'd be willing to listen to them, to let them be truth, too. It makes me wonder about the kind of person I am today, the kinds of experiences others are having of me right now, and whether I'd be willing to listen to those, either. 

Am I a person who is capable of handling someone else's truth about me? Am I someone who wears blinders to my own faults and weaknesses? Am I someone who can accept that I am not always my best, that I am not always the person that I claim to be...or even want to be? 

Or am I someone who falls back on, "Me? No. Not me." 

I think about how differently I would have felt about running into Crystal if she had not been so dismissive of my experience with her so many years ago. I think about how differently that exchange could have gone if she had not blocked out the truth about who she was as a young person. 

I wonder how my own social experience might change if I could embrace the kind of raw honesty that, I realize, something in my heart wanted from her. 

I am not perfect. Never have been. Never will be. Not in this life, anyway. 

Am I the kind of person who can admit that?