Double Take

My barber's mother did a double take the last time I went to get a haircut. You've lost weight; I can see it in your face. Congratulations, if that's what you want. I told her thank you and, yes, it was what I wanted.

You even look different, she said.

Angie's mother is right. I've changed physically and psychologically. You don't lose 50 pounds without changing the landscape of your physiology or the physiology of your mind.

One of my friends was looking at an old picture and she said that my hands looked liked little pillows then.

When I look at old pictures of myself, I am surprised by the heftiness.


How did I not see it? Maybe, I was in the first stage of grief.

Someone else told me, in an accusatory manner, that I had changed. I like to think that I have changed for the better, more patience et al.

The whole notion of change reminds me of part of Sharon Olds' The Unjustly Punished Child poem:

When he cools off and comes out of that door
he will not be the same child who ran in
and slammed it. An alloy has been added. Now he will
crack along different lines when tapped...