Purple Or Blue?

I'm listening to my daughter talk to her best friend on the phone. I'm not eavesdropping—she leaves her door cracked and knows I'm in the next room. She tells her friend that sometimes she asks her boyfriend what color eyeshadow she should use. "Purple or Blue?" And he says, "Whatever you want." Exasperated, my daughter explains to her friend that she wants her boyfriend's opinion, no one else's. She asks him this question because she wants to know what he thinks of her. What he wants. I think about my own life, the questions I've asked. How, in asking such questions, we are actually saying, "Do you see me? Does this matter? This moment?" How "whatever we want" is never truly what we want, not really. We want a decision. A choice made. Yes, I love you. Yes I want you. "I really like the blue."

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