People can change, right?

It’s been said that I am a good judge of character. I can say that my impression of a person early on is frequently still the impression I have years down the road. But lately, I have thought about the error of this way of thinking.

When we moved back to the east coast from the Midwest, we chose to move to a different town than the one where I grew up – about a half an hour south to a Rouse planned community, Columbia, Maryland. I thought that it was really different from Baltimore – it was when I was a kid. Columbia was a dreamworld, where people of different cultures and socio-economic backgrounds lived together, shopped together, went to school together. A place where our children could live in diversity – in its purest form. We even have group mailboxes to ensure that we see our neighbors every day.

And it is nice. We like it. We love that our kids are colorblind. We love that the public schools are award-winning. We love the services this community provides.

What I didn’t realize is that all the people I grew up with moved here, too. So while it’s a great place for many reasons, it’s old home week at the grocery store, at the gym, at the restaurants. Really, I know people everywhere I go from my previous life. That wasn’t the plan. But there are great things about that too. I re-met my friend Laurie, who was a great friend in high school. She’s still great. And there are others. But the odd thing is that since it’s a new venue, I somehow felt that everyone got a “do-over.” So that the girls who were mean to me in high school or even jr. high get a fresh start. People can change, right?

No. They can’t. Okay, not fair. They can. But they usually don’t. I find myself sucked in – thinking that people have pure motives, aren’t catty, really care. But really, it’s more like high school than I ever dreamed. So I am working on finding our place here. Finding the sincere ones and smiling, but walking past, the insincere ones.

The more things change, the more things stay the same. (What does that mean, anyway!?)