I keep thinking about diners. About booths that held everyone. About fries on shared plates. About arguing without exile.
I remember television that showed us together. Not perfect. Not polished. Just together. People said the wrong things. People learned. People stayed. No one scanned the room before sitting down. When did we stop doing that?
I do not remember my childhood as colorblind. I remember it as connected. We were in the same classrooms, on the same fields, in the same malls. We were not introduced to one another as categories. We were introduced as names.
Something shifted. Now we sort first. We interpret first. We brace first. We are taught to notice difference before humanity. We gather with our own and discuss others as if they are weather patterns. What happened to us?
We did not wake up cruel. We drifted apart. We stopped sharing physical space. We replaced conversation with commentary. We let algorithms feed us outrage instead of neighbors.
Slowly, the table emptied. The sadness I feel is not political. It is relational. It is grief for shared life. For the friction that softened us. For the ordinary practice of coexistence.
The mirror asks harder questions than nostalgia. Were we as integrated as we believed? Did comfort hide inequity? Did we mistake proximity for progress? Maybe.
But I know this. We once believed living together was the goal. Not winning. Not sorting. Living.
The mirror does not accuse. It reflects. If division is growing, where have I withdrawn? If fear is spreading, where have I stopped listening? If the table feels smaller, have I pulled my chair in?
We are not broken beyond repair. Humans normalize whoever they share life with. Always have. The question is not what happened to us. The question is whether we are willing to sit back down.