How had she gone from being so complex to a petty, predictable woman? Sometimes, when she looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn't recognise herself. It wasn't the wrinkles under her eyes or the white in her hair, which was all very new and very perplexing. It was rather the distance, the unfathomable separation between the self she could recognise - as infinitely reflexive, full of a myriad of different interests, ideas and dreams - and the self she was, composed of petty Monday blues, the wrong words spoken at the worst times, and concerns of her own welfare that had nothing to do with actually caring for herself. How had she become this person - this half-woman - who didn't know what it meant to love and to allow herself to be loved, whose thoughts were so dissociated that she could scarcely formulate a phrase with any true meaning?