There are moments in which you are introducing somebody to your world. In these moments we often introduce a chronology, beginning early and moving forward to catch them up to the present. If that goes well, we project into the future.

These moments of reminiscence can be fond and annoying, a series of emotional justifications and prevarications from which our current place/moment becomes framed. If this framing is inaccurate, we are tainted; if the framing is excessive or exuberant, we become grandiose.

I shade towards subdued and humble, but just as often find those that shade grandiose attain the status they envision of themselves, which is to become the optimistic lie.

The cautionary note is to be neither humble nor a liar, and stretch for better without depreciation or inflation: you do not need to say it to become it.