Ask Me When I’m Done.

There is a particular kind of struggle in knowing who you are not anymore.

You can see it in someone’s face.

Not sadness, exactly; not confusion either. Something less defined.

The person she had been no longer fit her, but the next version hadn’t arrived yet.

And there was something beautiful about that, a messy beauty.

We only get to witness for a little while, because eventually we figure ourselves out. We find new routines, new answers, new ways of introducing ourselves.

But for now, she was still in between.

I was making us Negronis.

Gin first.

Then Campari.

“I like Campari,” she said.

“Since when?”

She smiled.

“I don’t know. I do now.”

I poured it in.

“Things change.”

“I guess.”

Then the vermouth.

Maybe that was the part people were always trying to rush through.

The uncomfortable distance between I’m not that person anymore and this is who I am now. We treat it like something unfinished, something that needs fixing.

But sitting across from her that night, I wasn’t sure it did.

There was freedom in not knowing.

She could change her mind.

She could contradict herself.

She could like things she used to hate and hate things she once thought she needed.

Nothing had to make sense yet.

I poured the Negroni over ice and slid it toward her.

She took a sip.

“Bitter,” she said.

“You just said you like Campari.”

“I do.”

She took another sip.

“I think I like bitter now.”

Maybe that’s the strange part of knowing who you’re not anymore.

We expect whatever comes next to show up quickly. A new version of us. A better answer. Something that makes the change make sense.

But sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes we stay there for a while, not who we were, not sure who we’ll be.

She took another sip.

“You’ve changed.”

“I know.”

“You like it?”

“What?”

“Changing.”

She played with the ice for a second.

“Ask me when I’m done.”