Meet Jackie
Meet Jackie. Jackie never existed. Weird that I find myself introducing you to someone that never existed, but here we are. She doesn’t have a birth certificate. She doesn’t appear in any family photos. No teacher ever called her name in class. No doctor ever weighed her. No friend ever hugged her hello. No stranger ever held the door open for her. And yet, she is one of the most real people I’ve ever known. That's because Jackie is me. Or more accurately, she is the version of me that never got to be. To explain Jackie, I have to explain something that many people won’t immediately understand. When you grow up, you unconsciously assemble yourself out of whatever pieces feel safe. You learn which gestures are acceptable. You learn which instincts to follow and which to bury. You learn, sometimes without realizing it, how to survive by editing yourself. Sometimes you learn those things as a product of the environment you grow up in. For example an Italian boy in Brooklyn in the 1980...