To a certain extent, our reality can be "what we make of it", I suppose. ...To a certain extent anyway....

...I once had a friend who always wore a certain cross around her neck. No matter how formally or how casually she was dressed, the cross was there, hanging from a worn leather thong. It was intricate, but obviously hand-made by a novice craftsman. That cross, along with her smile and her eyes, was what attracted me to this friend the first time I met her - it caught the black light in a club and a few of the stones fluoresced. I finally got around to asking her whom made the cross she always wore around her neck. She looked at me oddly and asked, "What cross?" So I described it to her. I realized instantly as I described it to her that she wasn't wearing it at that moment, which struck me as extremely strange because I'd never seen her without it before that. After hearing my description she just sat still for a while. Then she looked at me and said, "My sister made it...she was killed in a car accident two years ago. I stopped wearing it the day she died. -- I put it in her coffin before we buried her."

...I didn't have much of a reply for her. In my reality, the cross was there, around her neck. In hers, it was buried long before we even met. I suppose either or both can be true concurrently, if we but alter our concept of time and space just a little. ...I don't know....

...To a certain extent...everyone sees what they want to see, ...perhaps some of us also learn to see what others wish they could show? Or maybe some are able to have their message reach the type of person it is meant to reach?

...I have hypothesized that perhaps she kept the cross and in fact did not bury it as she said...hence she clung to it as a keepsake of her sister...a symbol of her love and mourning. And thus it was not until shortly before I asked that she "came to terms" with her sister's death and decided she could move on and thus, stopped wearing it. And if such were the case, then maybe she did not "lie" directly with deceit in mind...but maybe it was how her reality was for her in her head. ...The drama and the reality and the harshness of the tragedy...and how her mind handled it. Again...I don't know. I just sort of left that one alone.

...I don't think I am crazy. Although I imagine there are some professors/doctors out there who would argue otherwise. :) But then again, hey, if "crazy" is defined as being out of control of ourselves, then most of us are nuts anyway because we have all relinquished our control to work/school/family/society anyway. :) Though my other dictionary defines "crazy" as being mentally unbalanced... I have yet to meet someone who is mentally balanced. Since humans only use a small fraction of their brain, (latest estimate to be about 15%), how can there be balance within...? I am crazy. *lol* [weeeee]