How the Dead Remember

Last night, I dreamt that I met, after a long time, a grade school classmate of mine who had shot herself in high school. I was reall excited, since, even though we had grown apart as we had grown older, we had been good friends in our early grade school years and I always thought fondly of her. In my dream, I somehow knew she had been dead, but it felt as if she had been overseas instead.

The part that weirded me out was, when we were reintroduced, she had completely forgotten about me! I spent a lot of time tring to make her remember who I was, that we had lived near each other, that she had me over once for her birthday party. Finally, she conceded that she vaguel remembered me, and when I asked her why she had forgotten, she said, "Because you aren't as interesting now as you were before."

That remark stung me. How could I be boring? Especially now that people can finally have decent conversations with me without being treated to occasional walls of silence, or monologues about how Leonardo is my favorite turtle (okay, I didn;t reall do that. I wasn't *that* crazy).

I spent the whole day thinking about it, and the conclusion that I have come to is this: I may be more socially savvy now, but at the cost of the uniqueness (read: craziness) that marked me as a child. I've learned to tame myself in order not to be left out, and in the process, murdered a part of me that, as socially inept as it was, was still a part of me, and is also a part of me that other people, dead, and maybe living, miss.