In this Guild? On Gaia? On the internet? In a particular home, in a particular city, in this, the Year of our Lord, 2023?


Someone in General Discussion posted about the disconnect between who we are now, compared to who we used to be, and it got me thinking a bit too much. I've had this account for a long damn time™, with only one small change to my username (the equivalent of dropping a "the" ), and yet I've been a lot of different people beneath the old Eragon reference. Middle school was literally decades ago and yet somehow here I am still posting on Gaia, what the actual ********?


This may not be the sanest confession (or post, for that matter), but I often have hypothetical conversations in my head, sometimes with people whom I haven't spoken with in almost that long. Some of those people I wouldn't know how to find again after all this time. Some of them I probably could, but they wouldn't want to talk to me now or ever again. Some of them are dead and buried and cannot speak at all, unless dreams are to be taken more seriously. And yet there's a version of each of them that still rides behind my eyes. I can still hear his laugh, taste her lips, feel his embrace. And none of the versions of them that haunt me actually reflect who they are now.


When I log on to Gaia, which version of the ghost am I? Is Yu-Gi-Oh still the coolest thing in the world? Does she still love me? Do I still have long hair and knees that work right? Do I still hate my job?










The past is almost as scary as the future sometimes...






...And maybe it's time to change my username.