Stations

Walking to work this morning I find myself thinking about how the different projections of myself are like TV stations.

As a child, my parents tried to change the station, to something more socially acceptable perhaps, but I don’t think any of us knew where the remote was. So the show was sad, scary, super awkward and occasionally amusing. Mostly just confusing though.

In college I found a station I liked, but I still didn’t know where the remote was. Sometimes the channel would change, and that other projection wouldn’t know how to handle her predicaments. It wasn’t great.

A few years later I discovered alcohol could change the channel. Not a remote but gave me a feeling of power. A way to slip effortlessly into a channel where I felt good about who I was seeing.

Until it brought me to a new channel. And another. And another. And then ones I don’t remember. She exists though, in people’s memory and cell phone videos and security cameras. And she’s not always terrible but I never remember the show playing on those channels.

I seem to have lost control over my metaphor. Anyway.

All this to say that, I am still looking for the damn remote. I’m glad though, I don’t respond to the Universal kind.