Identity confusion: You're Not the Only One

I’m sitting here looking at this spreadsheet and it kind of feels like I’m trying to read a map of a city that hasn’t been built yet.

so i was walking through terminal b today just like i have every week for twenty years and it finally hit me that i dont actually know where i am.

i have a whole family i bought from a shutterfly clearance aisle and it started as a joke in my head like oh theyll never know but now i have a fake daughter named maya who plays soccer and a son… …

I don't know, like you're wearing someone else's skin? …

You ever feel like you’re just a collection of domestic rituals held together by someone else’s aesthetic?

Sometimes you just get into this weird loop where your entire identity is built on being the "useful" one, you know?

You ever feel like you're just like, the background character in someone else's movie?

You know that feeling when you're digging through a box of old junk in the basement and you find a version of yourself that just... …

I don't know if this really counts as a confession, it's probably just a silly old woman rambling because I can't sleep, but... …

You ever feel like you’re just a placeholder?

I was out on a shift, doing the gig economy hustle in the cul-de-sacs. …

You ever sit in the dark at 2am, hearing the white noise machine humming through the monitor, and suddenly you’re fifteen again? …

Does anyone else ever just, I don't know, look at their hands and wonder how they ended up here?

like actually broken? …

I’m sitting in this kitchen in a village my father used to describe as a literal paradise, and I feel like an absolute impostor. …

broken or something because i felt like i was literally disappearing today. …

not literally of course, more like a cognitive dissonance that just wouldn't quit... …

It’s a strange thing, how humans are hard-wired for social mimicry. …

I still have the burn scar on my forearm from the night the spaghetti water boiled over when I was twelve, a shiny, puckered map of the year I stopped being a kid.

I’m sitting in my truck right now—the heater’s broken so I’m just shivering and staring at the neon sign for the diner across the street—and I can’t stop thinking about how much of a fucking fraud I… …