The years change with me

Some people look different from the side. They turn their heads and they're surprisingly unfamiliar; even abstract. The people I meet with and eat with are ciphers to me, sometimes: shape-shifters. Identity (mine, mostly) frays at the edges more often than can reasonably be considered desirable, and in fact so regularly that I can't really dismiss it (me) as contained or neatly codified. It's a lot about memory, I think, and all tied up with the way I forget names of novels and acquaintances so easily. Ironically it's a lot about being singular, in probably as many senses of that word you can conjure. I think of James on hopelessly sleepless nights like this - of the man who sways to and fro with the winds of flimsy doubts and doctrines. Is it winds or waves? Either way. Sometimes I feel too multifarious for the faith I profess; far too messy and dispersed. Do you, new friend?