Under construction.

She arrived carrying a purse too small for the worries she seemed to carry everywhere.

"You'll have a Negroni," I said, placing the mixing glass in front of her.

She liked watching the process. The ice, the measuring, and the brief illusion that some things in life could be improved by equal parts.

"You are thinking too much," she said.

I couldn't argue with that.

"Thinking is happening to me," I replied.

She smiled, but not enough.

"I didn't come here to talk about you, so listen."

There was that unmistakable irony in her voice that usually meant trouble was about to arrive disguised as wisdom.

She was searching through her purse with unusual determination.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"Myself."

I watched her for a moment.

"That's a strange place to look."

She stopped searching long enough to look at me.

"The self people spend their lives looking for doesn't exist anymore."

Then she closed the purse.

"That's depressing."

"It's liberating."

She needed the Negroni, so I gave it to her.

"So what are you supposed to do instead?"

She took a sip before answering.

"Create another one."

The answer arrived so casually that it almost escaped me.

"Another self?"

She loved the question.

"Of course. We do it all the time. New cities. New jobs. New relationships. New habits. New stories about who we are."

I stirred that thought for a while.

"So we've all been lied to? We're not finding ourselves?"

She shook her head.

"No. We just prefer the language of discovery to the responsibility of creation.The version of you that survived ten years ago isn't supposed to be the version that survives today. Most people suffer because they keep trying to return to someone who no longer exists."

"And the new self?" I asked.

She lifted the glass.

"The new self is always under construction."

For a moment, neither of us spoke, then she smiled.

"We call it finding ourselves because it sounds beautiful."

"And creating ourselves?"

"That sounds like work."

Another sip of her Negroni.

"Which is exactly why nobody wants to admit that's what they're doing."

The last of the drink disappeared.

"Besides," she said, "if you could actually find yourself, it would mean you were lost in the first place."

"And aren't we?"

She looked at me for a second.

"No. Most of us are just changing."