Content Warnings: N/A
Dear stranger,
When I was younger, I loved hiding under my pillow playing video games. My dad would open my bedroom door, see I was asleep and then move on. But the moment the door clicked close, I would pull the DS back out, feeling victorious in all the ways only a little kid could. It wasn’t like I had much control over anything in my life, but for that moment, I did. I decided I would play my game even though it was past bedtime. I didn’t get to say no to sitting into my sister’s piano lessons with nothing but a book I had perused a thousand times because my parents didn’t want me staying home alone. I didn’t get to say no to taking part in the church Christmas dance. But right now, I have decided I am going to play.
I’ve never felt as if I was ever participating in my life. It was more like I was on a train. Someone else decided where I stopped, for how long, what we ate along the way. If I didn’t like it? Tough nuts. Then where should we stop? Do you know what route we should take to get there? How are you going to get the money to pay for it? Don’t know the answers?
Then shut up and be grateful you’re so lucky.
Yet, at the same time, there did eventually come a time where people expected me to make all those decisions, but I don’t know how. It’s something I’m supposed to do, but I can’t let anyone know I actually can’t. So I’m still hiding, smirking with joy beside myself that I’m able to pull a fast one over everyone else. My incompetence is my little secret that I keep to myself, that I concoct little plans to keep it under wraps. I think that it makes me clever, carefully outwitting everyone else with my little deceptions, but really it’s probably the biggest open lie in the world. It’s just a lie I tell myself to make me feel better about myself. I can’t do anything by myself, but hey, I snuck out and bought myself a game without anyone knowing. That has to count for something, right?
