The Confession Letter
Dear older self,
This is a note to remind you of 2020; the year you thought you would gain your freedom but instead the world lost its own. People were sent into their homes like their walls were made of magnets and bodies were weak to the charge.
I know time has managed to transform the past into another story. You are probably looking back through its pages like it happened but never really did. What an odd perpetual feeling it is, to live so wholly yet feel a replicate did it for you and that you were never there. Time turns everything into a story; remember the importance of re-feeling them before you turn into just a story yourself. This letter is to help you recreate the moments; let it brush itself against your bones. Let it ache your body like it used to – if you don’t become living words then who will? Remember what made you and what shaped the world. Stories and survival are only separated by a fine line and sometimes we need to stand with one foot on each side to remember.
Being locked
Locked in
Locked out
Locked inwards
Hidden
Silent
Locked away Burst
Underground
Waiting
Can you recollect what it was like to be a Russian doll? Always feeling trapped in a self, then another until the next.
It was the start of 2020 and you were raging for freedom – you had fallen in love until you got locked in love. Love faded and you had stayed locked. Where? Somewhere that was dark, lonely… maybe a little comforting. You lost yourself completely to someone you thought was love that doesn’t betray, it never was healthy but you had still decided to stay. For a bit too long; a lot of us do that sometimes.
Just when you thought you ended it and that freedom would brush against your face like drizzling rain. A pandemic attacked the entire globe and you were left in the same place – the sun shone differently and the streets from your window empty. What an odd time to live when you wanted to restart yourself. What an odd time to find a restart button when the entire world pressed shutdown. In instances the circuits fell asleep one after the other. All the hackers and coders fell into a coma and the system went to sleep.
It was fucking terrifying. You had no idea what was already locked inside your chest from being suppressed and undergrown. All that suffocation you felt that’s been raging to break through by dancing till dawn has lost its chance again. Instead, they were asking of you to dance alone and so was everyone around you. You became the Russian doll. Locked inside a self, with things locked inside its chest, locked inside the walls of your home, inside fear and inside a mind you haven’t asked questioned to for so long. You knew it was going to get really loud and then abruptly quite.
From completely losing yourself to suddenly being asked to sit with her.
She smelled differently and the skin below her eyes had shadows of the moon – and now you suddenly had to talk to her.
* * *
Recently, you had learned that there is a module in the left hemisphere that allows individuals to create meaning. Even in utter randomness the module finds a thread and creates purpose. It is called the interpreter, and its function is to interpret meaninglessness into meaning. The world started to create meaning during the pandemic and the human being was apparent in full force. The human being as an artist, a creator, a dreamer… a lost body always attempting find a way home. Our interpreters were aching to find threads of meaning during the isolation. In our books, in our movies, in texts we sent to people we haven’t talked to in years, in introspection … we were all forced to get creative in our interpretations.
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Dearest older self, allow me to confess what it feels like in this moment.
Locked in
Locked out
Locked inwards
Hidden
Silent
Locked away
Burst
Underground
Waiting
Room
It feels like you are in a waiting room where when your turn is called, life starts again.
Where people are sitting in a crowded space yet never talking, just silence. Unless broken by the tapping of fingers on phones. This room where magazines are being skimmed through by eyes that are closed. Where kids are playing in circles while an elderly man has fallen asleep
It feels like a waiting room but there she is sitting next to you – the part of you that you had forgotten. And for some peculiar reason, you aren’t minding the pandemic. You both stand up and start dancing till dawn and it doesn’t feel like you are waiting for anything anymore. This room is just like any other room. This day will pass into another. The world does random things and we interpret.
** *
You will only know freedom when you remember how you freed yourself with the power off. You freed yourself inside of the system that was asleep. You pulsated life into the circuits and made a black screen glitch for a second.
Sincerely,
Your Younger Self
2020