oh we did enough

so a funny thing happened while in the bathroom the other day. i mean, what's the deal with toilet paper?

not really.

what happened was this. i'm in the ladies room. the stall, more specifically. and my supervisor and a colleague enter the room and start talking shop. and yada yada, the conversation reaches a point where supervisor says, "you can talk to annie about that." and the colleague says, "which one is annie?" and now i find myself at an impasse. what probably should have happened is that i would have called out, "hey girls! i'll be out in a second." and we all would have had a good giggle. but instead i was gripped by some strange sort of masochistic curiosity to see how i was about to be described. she has long hair? she has reading glasses? she has a laugh like sunshine and eyes that sparkle like the sea? i stayed quiet. and this is what she said.

"she has fair skin and she's always really pleasant."

she has fair skin and she's always really pleasant. first of all, fair skin?? damn you new york city. i stayed awkwardly in the stall until it was all clear and then escaped. and proceeded to ruminate over the event for the next several hours.

when people die, we say all kinds of things about them. i always wanted to be more like my brother. she was a loving mother. none of us will ever forget their laugh. and i think that we often ask ourselves, what will be said about me? right? or is that just me... my thought is nothing new. you could all probably script this rumination as well as i have. what will people say about me when i die? why don't we say these things about each other when we're alive? what would they say if they were being REALLY honest?

she had fair skin and was always very pleasant.

sure, it may not be, "she saved my life from an alligator attack," or, "she helped deliver my baby while stuck in the top car of a ferris wheel." but maybe heroes are overrated. or maybe i'd just like to think so. i can't pretend i don't wish i could live as the perpetual "most likely to change the world" recipient. and yes, that is a real award i received while employed at a summer camp. and by real i mean made of cardstock and permanent markers. but the fact of the matter is, there's not room enough for everyone to be a hero. it's when we try to be that we end up in the streets, covered in war paint, burning up cars and bumping into each other with our baseball bats, declaring, "i have something worth fighting for!" and we become party to the coup.

i may be wrong but it feels suspiciously like growing up to realize that, when it's all said and done, i may be content with a marble marker that reads only as below:

annie frary carter
she did not own a cape.
she was always very pleasant.