One more time with feeling

Most of us don't want to change. 
What we do want is sort of modifications on the original model. 
We keep on being ourselves, but hopefully better versions of ourselves. 

But what happens when an event occurs that is so catastrophic that we just change from one day to the next?
We change from the known person to an unknown person, so that when you look at yourself in the mirror, do you recognize the person that you were, but the person inside the skin is a different person? 

So that when you go outside, the world its the same, but now you are a different person, and you have to re-negotiate your position in the world.
For instance, when you go into a shop to get cigarettes, because this new version of yourself smokes, and the shop owner says, 'How are you?' And you don't know how to answer.
Or when you meet a friend on the street who says some kindness, and suddenly you are crying their arms for ages, and then you realize that person is not a friend at all, but someone else that you don't actually know very well.
Or you go into a bakery to buy a loaf of bread, say, and you're standing in the queue, and someone grabs you by the arm says something with their kind eyes, but you can't work out what they've said because the new you can't hear very well. And so you say, 'What?' but too loudly, and angrily and he says, 'We are all with you, man,' and you look around and all the bakery is looking at you with kind eyes. And you think that people are really nice.

But when did you become an object of pity? 


Nick Cave