I approached the oak cabinet, the paneled floor creaking with my weight, and opened it. Hinges swung aground, the wood crying out. I reached for my prize. A porcelain bowl shifted into my fingers, cold to the touch, intriguing to the eye. The inside of the bowl was formed into two faces, their skin pulling at the sides of the ware. They struggled to make eye contact with all their might, but a solid is solid, and they cannot change. I placed the bowl back inside the cabinet and decided this bowl symbolized success. It may feel unattainable, but I will always try to attain it. I may be able to buy the bowl one day (goodness knows how much my parents paid for it), but then I will break it, and I will have to buy glue to repair it. There is a slight chance it will be the same as it once was. The faces strained to touch each other, their skin melded into the sides of the piece: if they can reach each other one day, anything is possible. Success is possible. It - anything - can be attained.

I closed the cabinet door and started to rise, but something caught my eye. The oak door of the cabinet held spotless glass panels between its wood pieces. I found an individual reflected in one of the panels: who is there? It had been staring back at me while I distractedly meditated on the meaning of life. The glasses inside shook for a moment and began to move together, eight pieces huddling in groups on each of the three shelves. 

When I was three, my mother took me to a Starbucks near our apartment to meet with a graduate student so she could conduct an experiment for her research paper. The memory has distorted over time, but what I remember is what matters.

We walked five blocks through midtown Manhattan, holding hands to cross the street. My mother waited in line while I looked for a table, the morning rush just beginning. She brought a pink cake pop with white sprinkles for me and a chamomile tea for herself. I stared at the green mermaid on her cup until the grad student arrived, apologizing profusely for her tardiness. We excused her. She pulled out a thick silver computer and clunked it down on the faux-wood table. After pulling up her notes, the grad student took out flashcards with various everyday objects. She would ask me to name one, then type furiously into the computer, divining my apparent genius. From one flashcard to another, an object would change in color or size but retain its overall shape.

Is this an apple? Yeah. Is this an apple? It's blue. Is it still an apple? Sure. 

Supposedly, a central part of the experiment was not to tell the subject (me) what the experiment was looking to discover. Do I still know? No. Maybe I am still the three-year-old subject, naming objects. Here is an essay on The Great Gatsby. Here is my first kiss. Here is my lack of a driver's permit. Here is a C in Chemistry. Here is my childhood stuffed animal, a character from a Dr. Seuss book. I can name these objects and, in turn, become the prodigal topic of this grad student's next paper. 

Is this healthy? Yeah. Is this healthy? It's someone breaking my boundaries. Is it still healthy? Sure.

At the end of the experiment, the student grabbed a plastic Duane Reade bag she had placed under the table when she arrived and, from inside, pulled out a blue stuffed animal the size of my torso. From the creature hung six little legs, each ending in a tiny fuzzball. The stuffed animal vaguely resembled an ant, its eyes protruding from a chubby face. I swung my prize around while walking home, proud that I had contributed to something. Throwing my cake pop stick into the corroded metal trash bin at the crosswalk, it dawned on me: I now had a purpose. It was worth examining. If the college student asked me to name another object, I might have said, "Me!" lisping in my gap-toothed smile, five-fingered hands tucked under my belly, staring up at my source of validation.

The twenty-four glasses, evenly distributed between the three shelves, stand as a background to the glass panels in the cabinet. A face is staring back in the reflection of the panels, and it could not be me.