TITLE: Me and Not Me
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: May 19, 2019 10:48 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 At one point in the novel "Outline", by Rachel Cusk, a
 middle-aged man relates a conversation that he had with his
 elderly mother, in which she says:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 I could weep just to think that I'll never see you again
 as you were at the age of six -- I would give anything,
 she said, to meet that six-year-old one more time.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 This made me think of two photographs I keep on the wall at
 my office, of my grown daughters when they were young.  In
 one, my older daughter is four; in the other, my younger
 daughter is two.  Every once in a while, my wife asks why I
 don't replace them with something newer.  My answer is
 always the same:  They are my two favorite pictures in the
 world.  When my daughters were young, they seemed to be
 infinite bundles of wonder: always curious, discovering
 things and ideas everywhere they went, making connections.
 They were restless in a good way, joyful, and happy.  We
 can be all of these things as we grow into adulthood, but I
 experienced them so much differently as a father, watching
 my girls live them.

 I love the people my daughters are now, and are becoming,
 and cherish my relationship with them.  Yet, like the old
 woman in Cusk's story, there is a small part of me that
 would love to meet those little girls again.  When I see
 one of my daughters these days, she is both that little
 girl, grown up, and not that little girl, a new person
 shaped by her world and by her own choices.  The
 photographs on my wall keep alive memories not just of a
 time but also of specific people.

 As I thought about Cusk's story, it occurred to me that
 the idea of "her and not her" does not apply only to my
 daughters, or to my wife, old pictures of whom I enjoy
 with similar intensity.  I am me and not me.

 I'm both the little guy who loved to read encyclopedias
 and shoot baskets every day, and not him.  I'm not the
 same guy who walked into high school in a new city excited
 about the possibilities it offered and nervous about how
 I would fit in, yet I grew out of him.  I am at once the
 person who started college as an architecture major -- who
 from the time he was eight years old had wanted to be an
 architect -- and not him.  I'm not the same person who
 defended a Ph.D. dissertation half a life ago, but who I
 am owes a lot to him.  I am both the man my wife married
 and not, being now the man that man has become.

 And, yes, the father of those little girls pictured on
 my wall: me and not me.  This is true in how they saw me
 then and how they see me now.

 I'm not sure how thinking about this distinction will
 affect future me.  I hope that it will help me to
 appreciate everyone in my life, especially my daughters
 and my wife, a bit more for who they are and who they
 have been.  Maybe it will even help me be more generous
 to 2019 me.
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