Locked away inside these crumbling remains are a story of a past and a life that I mostly look back on fondly, but sometimes wish I left behind -- it all depends on how forlorn the present finds me. Sometimes, the ghosts amongst the assorted junk I see all around say: now you remember when life was real. Whatever strides I imagine I have made, they seem to come undone in a few seconds amongst these inanimate reminders. I think back to days and nights spent in supplication for an escape out of the shell I had found myself in, and am forced to ask myself, what has really changed? Sometimes I think it better to leave these doors locked and just walk away. No matter how torrid the present may seem, at least it offers the illusion that the future is not fixed.
Paradoxically, this is also the site of what for the last several years has been my haven against arguably an even deeper hell. When I'm doing reminiscing on how awkward the past me was, I think about how happy he was too. All said and done, I found myself here, and while there were passing phases of sorrow, looking back on it now they seem like the golden years. I can't help but wonder what the person who lived here would say about the person who visits on occasion, going through roughly the same routines but with each action made a little heavier. It's the story of my life, hopping from one low to another.
Blessed now with the experiences that let me fully flesh out a host of regrets, I take pause to think as to what I wish I had done differently. Not much, truth be told. Perhaps I wish that I had the foresight to venture outside my room more, to realise there is a world outside the one contained in my head. But that's pique, because I know I was quite content most days. I console myself with the thought that there is really no guarantee that anything else I did would have seen me fare better. No, it seems that all roads lead to perdition.
Does all of this make up a life? I suppose it must, no matter what went on in them. There were good times, bad times, but mostly just time passing. What we look back on is what we choose to forget. Who would have thought that this is how it would end up? The threads that make up a life all scattered across the globe. A mind wrecked in the process. Whatever of myself that is left here are those pieces discarded along the trail we believed to be towards something better. Whether that is what stands here today, I cannot judge. What to make of it all? Never give yourself to a time that has passed.
