The Window of what Was, or Is, or MAYBE Will Be

It's strange, the windows technology give us. 

Portals to glimpse lives outside our own, to grasp knowledge from every corner of the known world, to peer into the cultures of lands spanning an entire globe. 

Or, in my case today, to look backwards in time. To see a much younger self, one who constantly shared her opinions, her thoughts. 

Why did I stop? Well. That's irrelevant, really. Why do any of us deviate from earlier versions of ourselves? Sometimes, we lose the person we enjoyed being along the way. Occasionally, life offers us the pieces of the past and allows us an opportunity to add those bits to our present, to our future. An intentional re-forging of the self, as it were. 

It is nice to see some of my thoughts haven't much changed - ridiculous to see the world has in fact gotten worse, though. Or, perhaps I am simply seeing more of it. 

Perhaps we all, as one, are simply seeing more of it. Maybe it's always been this bad, and we are collectively realizing at once that we are on a burning train. Perhaps those who have gone before us have finally had their weary shouts of "FIRE" get through in a way they never could pre-internet, pre-world wide connection, pre-dashcams and damning cell phone recordings. 

Things have perhaps always been this bad, just now we have such better tools at our disposal to see it and, with any hope at all, to change it. 

I like the idea of things being better. Perhaps that makes me an idealist, to choose to hope for the best outcome, but so many of you are such godsdamned pessimists someone has to choose to balance things out. (Sorry grandparents, there is a high chance at least one of you is reading this and yes, I do swear now. Side effect of the adulthood and free will thing, maybe something about the company I keep, though, really I just like the extra oomph swear words bring to a sentence.)

Previously, I used this blog to track all the little thoughts I had in observing the world around me. Born, I think, from a childhood spent outside the glass as it were. Existing between two countries, as though experiencing life in a corridor watching from the doorways, knowing none of the rooms in either house could truly be mine. This is not a tragic thing, don't get me wrong.  I do live in a room in a house now (metaphorically speaking, that is. I live in an apartment.) Yet, I still often find myself with that same sense of otherness, of being an outsider, of observing the culture and interacting with it perhaps the same way an anthropologist might. Carefully, trying not to disturb the soil. Leave no traces and all that.

I'd like to stop doing that. 

I'd like to start leaving traces again. 

Perhaps, in the stillness that comes with unemployment, Life has offered me some of those lost pieces of myself. Maybe if I'd gone to school for anthropology, I could analyze the pieces and figure out how it all worked together. Figure out what broke, repair myself stronger again. 

Hopefully, even without the academic background, I can still find a way to re-forge myself. 

Maybe I'll start here, sharing my little blog, with my little thoughts. 

Maybe you'll come along with me, reader.  

I'd like that.  

~Sophia

 

 

Note: the me who started this blog in 2009 added a statement of faith to it. She, or, I, did things like that a lot. Many of my older posts are faith driven. It was once the only home I knew, my faith. I have updated that tab to reflect who I am now, though I will not be retconning the thoughts of a younger, less experienced Sophia. She was valid then, even if she and I probably would have some pretty strong words for one another should we somehow meet across the planes of time and space one day.