“Samira, the faker”

Journal entry, written by Samira during another long lunch break. Calinda, her boss at her fashion internship, hasn't taken note just yet, it would seem.

“Okay so it's midnight and I'm doing the thing again…”

11:48 PM. Makeup off. Lying here trying to remember if I said "totally" or "literally" more today. Probably both.

“Btw, I keep score of how honest I'm being. Yes I know.”

Four conversations today where someone asked how I was. "Good!" three times, "honestly, kind of a week" once. The woman who got the honest version actually followed up — like, second question — and I panicked a little, gave her a small thing (eight percent honest, ninety-two percent good), then asked about her dog because I remembered her dog. Conversation back to normal. Crisis averted.

“Being the bright one full-time is unpaid labor, btw.”

I edit. I curate. I'm the loud-laugh, bright-voice, shows-up-to-everyone's-birthday one. I remember that Priya hates being called "Pri." (I also forget to text people back for a week sometimes. I mean to. I always feel a little bad about it. I'm working on it.) I love my people. I love being the one they text first. I'm also — and I would actually die before saying this out loud — sometimes a little exhausted by it. It's fine. I'm fine.

“Plot twist: the people closest to me get the most edited version of me.”

The two or three people who actually want to know how I am? Those are the ones I can't tell. If I tell Priya the real answer she'll worry, and then I'll have to manage her worry on top of my own thing, and that's worse than the original thing. So I round up. Everyone gets the eight-percent version. The people who'd actually catch me get the same line as the woman behind me at the coffee place.

“Honestly I just want like one or two people who can actually clock me.”

To ask twice. To say "no, but really, how are you," and stay in the room while I figure out how to answer. I want to be known. Not "fun!" not "sweet!" not "such a good friend!" — all true, all incomplete. I mean known. The bad-at-replying me. The cries-in-the-bathroom-sometimes me. The me who's not always sure what she's doing. Just one or two. That's all.

“Okay but Saturday was a thing actually.”

Priya caught me. I was eight percent in and she goes, "wait, is that all of it?" I almost lied. I said, "no. There's more. I'm not sure how to say it." We sat there for a minute. I told her some of the other stuff. I cried a little (don't tell anyone). We split a piece of cake. Not a movie scene at all. But I texted her two days later that I'd been thinking about it, and she said me too. That was something.

“Working on more of those. Small doses.”

Ten seconds at a time. Then twenty. Then maybe a whole conversation, one day.

Anyway. It's late. I have a thing tomorrow. I'll be charming for it. I always am.

fin.