I feel stuck somewhere between the past and the present, like a ghost from a long-gone era haunting where used to be home. Too far from the past, but not really anywhere else. The past has come and gone, but the present has left me behind.
There are few things as terrible as being left behind. Do you remember being left behind when you were a kid? That feeling of betrayal, the hollowness of loneliness, the horror of being stuck with yourself? How do you catch up with the others when you have been left behind, when they have gone somewhere you cannot reach? What are you supposed to do when this happens? Was it taught to us? I don’t know. Perhaps I should know, maybe there is no one but myself to blame for not knowing, but I do not know.
I revisit the past. I go to the basement for the old cassette tapes even though I’m terrified of the basement. I am terrified of place built to be beneath, to bury you alive. Besides, it’s haunted. But what else is there to do? The present has left me behind on the trip to the future and all I am left with are these recordings of the past. I play and re-play them, over and over again. I obsessively pause and rewind and analyse every scene, every detail, every choice. What could have been different? What could have been better? What could I have done different to make things better? What could I have done better to not be here? Over and over and over again, haunting my past self and being haunted by the past.
I wonder if ghosts know that they’re ghosts, if they want to move on too. Do they stay because they’re hoping for a future where the horrors of the past are made less horrific? Hoping that some meaning will be attached to their past in a future they cannot reach? Is staying a choice? Is leaving an option?
How do you let go of the past when it’s all that you have left? How can you not go over every detail, every mistake, every flaw? How do you stop yourself from haunting the past when there’s nowhere else you can go? All that’s left to do is haunt the halls of the places and the people you once were, and to try desperately to change what was so that you can change what is even though you know it cannot be. You haunt your past self with resentment and regret and grief as they take the paths that lead to you, as they make the decisions that haunt you.
You cannot rewrite the past. You do not know how to reach the future. The present has left you here. This is your home. This is your prison. This is your curse.
