Who Is This Woman?

Last night I received an email from an X-boyfriend who lives in Paris (his picture with his son was in my Happy Father's Day entry). He said he had picked up an old book of his that he had not looked at in years, and some old pictures fell out of it. So he sent me some. This one of me I have never seen before. I assume he took it, but I do not remember. It's been 18 or so years. It is a strange sensation to say the least when you see a picture of yourself you've never seen before. Nonetheless, as I stare at the woman in the picture and at her eyes, I do not recognize anything about this face. The expression is so unlike any I see when I look in the mirror. My life has been so full of extremes, betrayals, motherhood, deaths of friends, wealth, the opposite, real love, horror in my little town... I never know what is around the next corner. But I'm not afraid. I do know that this woman in the picture is long gone. I wasn't aware, at the time of the photo, that I would have been a great backup singer for Cher singing "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves".