Esprit de l'escalier

I was working on a puzzle just a moment ago (while waiting for my husband to run to the store because we both had an odd craving for mac n’ cheese) when I had an interesting progression of thought.
I’m not sure how I got to thinking about this, but I was thinking about embarrassing moments and an instance came to mind of a mission trip to Mexico when I was talking with one of the kids in Spanish and I remember saying something like “Yo estoy embarrasada” or something. Which, suddenly had everyone in earshot laughing or looking at me with grave concern. Apparently, ’embarrasada’ translated means pregnant. Naturally that’s not what I mean to say.
Regardless, it was a funny moment. The problem is, as I reflected on that memory, I wondered for a second if it happened to me or if it happened to someone else and I empathized so much that I actually, through osmosis, took on that experience for them. I seriously stopped and thought hard about it because for some reason, there are times when I recall something thinking I was there when I really wasn’t. For the record, in the Mexico case, it did happen to me.
I didn’t really realize that I did this until my best friend pointed it out to me once. I remember one time laughing about something and then saying to her, “Remember that time when…blah blah blah?” And she said, “Yea, that blah blah blah was really funny, hilarious. But you weren’t there.” I pause and look on with a blank, ashamed stare. She continues, “I told you about that story. You weren’t there.”
Perhaps it was a deep longing within me to be with my best friend through all those memorable, look-back-with-fondness-moments, that makes me believe that I was ‘always’ there. I dunno. Does that happen to anyone else? I mean, not with my best friend, but with yours.

What’s worse is when I start confusing TV with real life. By this, I’m referring to the impulse to volunteer prayer requests for my favorite CSI character at Bible Study. Could it be that my days are filled with so much work, like breathing and brushing my teeth, that I haven’t taken the time to distinguish between fiction and reality? So now the two worlds have collided and I make myself feel like I’m part of this intensely, unrealistically exciting world of puzzles, crime and intrigue. That couldn’t be it. Because that would mean I’m insane and there’s no way a crazy person could outwit a serial killer/dirty cop and put him behind bars for molesting his teenage daughter, killing her and covering it up by processing the scene himself, making it look like a suicide and getting his partner to take the fall when the heat pours on. No, Gil Grissom and I pulled that one off together (with the help of Catherin) and obviously, neither of us are crazy.