Is anyone else out there… I don’t know… perpetually performing for an audience that doesn’t exist, even when you’re entirely alone? I’m talking about the kind of performance that becomes so ingrained, you can’t tell where the act ends and *you* begin. Every single day, every day, it’s like living in a perfectly manicured diorama, the kind my grandkids used to make for school projects. You know, the little plastic people, frozen in perpetual motion, smiling their little plastic smiles. I’m 68, give or take, and for the vast majority of those years, I’ve been living in a carefully constructed suburban tableau. The house, the car, the perfectly trimmed lawn that makes old Mr. Henderson three doors down seethe with quiet envy. My parents, bless their well-intentioned souls, were masters of assimilation. They were very clear, from the moment I was old enough to comprehend: *You are one of us. You belong here.* And I believed them, truly. I adopted their mannerisms, their speech patterns, their inexplicable fondness for mid-century modern furniture. I was a chameleon, a highly adaptable organism, perfectly suited to my environment. The peculiar thing is, I *look* nothing like them. Or their friends. Or anyone else in our cul-de-sac, for that matter. I always stuck out, even when I was trying my absolute best to blend. “Oh, you’re… exotic,” a well-meaning neighbor once chirped at a block party, her eyes lingering a moment too long. Exotic. Like a bird from a distant land, kept in a gilded cage in a perfectly ordinary living room. I’d just smile, perfectly pleasant, and pivot the conversation to the rising property taxes, a topic guaranteed to elicit enthusiastic commiseration. The outward performance never faltered, not once. But lately, something has shifted. It started, I think, with retirement. The daily commute, the office politics, the relentless push-pull of corporate life – all gone. And suddenly, there’s this… void. This silence, where the constant hum of external demands used to be. And in that silence, these persistent questions have started to surface, like weeds through pavement. Who *am* I, when I’m not playing the part of the successful suburbanite? What does it mean to look in the mirror and see a face that is undeniably *other*, while feeling, in every fiber of your being, utterly and completely *here*? It’s a cognitive dissonance, a schism in the self, truly fascinating to observe from a purely clinical perspective. But also… immensely unsettling. Am I the only one who feels this profound disconnect? This sense of being a stranger in my own skin, even as I recognize every wrinkle, every sunspot? I find myself scrolling through old photos, searching for… what, exactly? A hint? A clue? A flicker of recognition that might bridge this chasm. I’ve even started researching, quietly, discreetly, the way one might investigate a perplexing financial anomaly. Ancestry dot com. Genetic testing kits. It feels… unseemly, almost. A betrayal of the perfectly constructed life my parents gave me. But the urge, this insistent pull, is undeniable. I’ve lived seventy years as one person, and now, suddenly, I have this… this hypothesis that needs testing. And honestly, it’s exhausting. The sheer effort required to maintain this internal inquiry, all while making sure the hydrangeas are watered and Mrs. Peterson thinks I’m still just enjoying my golden years… it’s a lot. A LOT. And for what? So I can finally understand why I always felt like a beautifully wrapped present with the wrong label on it? Sometimes, I just want to yell. In the middle of the frozen food aisle. Just scream, *I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE!* But then I wouldn’t get my organic free-range chicken, and that would just be a whole other problem.