Self-inflicted Museums

We speak in the past or future tense, but rarely in the present. Things we have liked, places we have lived, trips we will take, errands we will run. When people ask, “how are you?”, they rarely mean how are you in that very second the question is being asked. Instead, we answer in general terms, crafting responses based on emotions and experiences we’ve had over a broader section of time, like a week or a month. It’s easier to pinpoint our feelings as collective rather than as they exist minute to minute. Maybe it makes us feel more in control of our own narratives. However, I can’t help but think how it also robs us of the complexities that make us human. We’re not always feeling “good”. Sometimes we’re feeling ecstatic, other times nostalgic, and depending on how closely you follow the news, hopeless. When we can name our emotions as they float or crash in and out of our lives, we become three-dimensional. We develop nuance and transform into beings others can empathize with and connect to. When we talk about ourselves in the present, we remove ourselves from the walls in the museums we hung ourselves onto. These self-inflicted museums forced us to become people others admired. The kind of subjects people would take pictures of with their phones, not because they made them feel something, but because they were beautiful. I want more than admiration, I want connection. I don’t want others to admire my accomplishments framed in gold from behind red tape. I want to tell them from my own lips the stories of current sorrows that are just as necessary as the bliss. I want to watch their faces as I explain how one could not exist without the other. I want to watch their eyes dilate as they respond and tell me about what brought them light and darkness and how right now in this very moment they feel neither light nor dark, but dusk, somewhere in between. The present is an odd concept, always happening, but simultaneously slipping away. Regardless, I think I’d like to spend more time here, breathing in and out with people who are also whole and imperfect. We’re all living reminders, we can exist right now just as we are, not as who we were or want to be, and it’s more than enough.