The Curve Never Ends

Life has a funny way of turning itself into a classroom, even when you think you’ve already graduated. I learned that again this morning, sitting with a cup of coffee in hand and watching a short clip from Tootsie that popped up on that ticky-tacko thingy online.

You know the one, Dustin Hoffman, dressed as Tootsie, has a heart-to-heart with Jessica Lange’s character. She tells him how she’d like a man to walk up, be honest, and say something sweet instead of playing games.

Later, Hoffman does that, but this time he’s himself, and she throws a drink in his face. It’s a perfect little loop of human contradiction. We say we want honesty, but when honesty shows up uninvited, we reach for the nearest glass of white wine and hurl it.

The scene triggered a long-forgotten memory from back in my high school days. There was this girl, a senior when I was a sophomore, who carried herself as if she’d already outgrown our world.

Two weeks before prom, we ended up sitting next to each other on the bus home. She started talking about how she didn’t care for “high school formality,” that the social order was dumb, and that people should do their own thing.

She said it as if she were daring the universe to test her. A week later, I took her at her word, and I asked her to the prom.

The look she gave me was polite, but there was something in her eyes that said I’d just stepped into something best left on the lawn. She let me down gently and said she didn’t have a dress, no gas money, no time to get ready, and besides, she was a senior while I was just a sophomore.

It was a perfectly logical rejection wrapped in a bow of kindness. However, I recall sitting there, wondering how someone could speak about revolutionizing the system one week, then cling to it the next.

It wasn’t heartbreak that struck me, but the lesson, or at least, the start of one. Because life keeps teaching you the same thing in different ways, just because someone says something doesn’t mean they believe it.

People love the idea of boldness more than practicing it. They talk about breaking free, but they also want to be invited to the party everyone else is going to.

Watching Tootsie again, I realized I’m still rounding that same curve, still learning that talk and truth rarely hold hands for long.