“She existed in her friends; there she was. All the parts of herself she’d forgotten. She knew herself best when she was with them. “

Ann Brashares, Sisterhood Everlasting

Why do I feel so disconnected? Why does time feel like it is simply passing, and I am no longer experiencing anything? How can I feel so deeply that I am a failure when in actuality I am not failing a single course? Am I only failing myself?

Why am I unable to plan, to arrange, to organize in any way the world that I am supposed to navigate? I no longer feel like myself, or maybe I feel the most like myself, or maybe I feel like nothing at all and everything at once. What do “I” truly feel like? What version of me is the real me, if any of them are? Is it an amalgamation of every version, or the one I like the most, or the one I like the least? Because truly, deeply, I do not know. The woman who writes every sentence is a different creation; all women having a conversation with herself and each other about the collective hand that picks up the pen. And not a single one of these women knows a definitive truth about any of the others, only her own mind and words and thoughts; yet despite this, they will be destined to share one mind, one mouth, one hand, one pen. I am desperate to pluck one of them up from my head, situate her between the tips of my two fingers, and force her to tell me who is real. This would garner nothing, not a peep, because none of them know any more than I. Can I be no one? It must feel nice to be no one.

In truth, I feel no sadness at the thought of being forgotten about by history. Why should I care?; was I loved while I was here? Why should I be concerned about becoming the past if I will not even be present to observe the future? For all purposes, it is probably best to be forgotten after everyone who has loved you has died. I will not be warped as some Jesus figure; distorted by time, human error, turned into a beast I had never become. So many authors write, create, discuss, as a desperate attempt for someone to please, Dear God, do not forget me, let me be remembered so I cannot cease to exist!!! Entirely ridiculous. No one cheats death, existence. You will die. Nothing will change that. A moment will arise where you, both your physical form and any remnants of you, will cease to exist. Just as one day, Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Austen, van Gogh, will be forgotten, so will I. Whether it is one day or 500 years, you will be left behind, and it will not matter when because you will not be here to see it. This is in no way meant to be upsetting; rather, a comfort. When you are forgotten, no one will twist you. You cannot be an icon, a figure-head. Because who are we, when all of our humanity is stripped from us and we are left with nothing but fact? What do I care that you wrote a book, or were born years prior to your death and died years after your birth, if I do not know what song you hum to comfort yourself or how you liked to wear your hair? Your book, your art, your creation, is not your humanity; you die, and your work takes on a life of its own. So what is the reason you fear being forgotten? Perhaps I will never know. I do know I will never share your fear, because I have loved life and been loved by life, and that is enough for me.