the transient nature of the world used to scare me. it used to make me feel painfully aware of how i never fit anywhere. people would be around but it never seemed like they saw me, // life as a closeted tranny does that i guess, // never really understood and more appropriately, just tolerated
i wish i could say i got used to people leaving without a word as to why // the times people have told me the why its just left me feeling used, // and admittedly it's worn off on me. i never was very good at keeping in touch anyways and texting feels like a battle between revision and honesty. for much of my life i've found myself alone in a room, in a sense waiting for someone to come by and dust off the discarded hobby on their shelf.
i often found myself outside of friend groups, not really being invited but people show up if i put something together or had something they needed from me. tessa and bikes, tessa and hoc, tessa and alcohol, never just tessa. and as someone who cycles hobbies it becomes pretty noticeable. it's not a cycle of hobbies, its a cycle of communities. and if i don't flag i am a part of these communities it's as if i don't exist in the first place
for a long while i had a real problem with this, i took it incredibly personally every time i would stop a hobby. the silence overtook every thought and i didn't have a way to process the feeling, let alone explore it and share them in a way i felt could even describe it. until now, i've found that i am able to kinda do it with photography. it's a complex relationship i've found, and i'll write about it later. but i find when i sit alone in an empty room and a camera, i can create a physical representation of my feelings // and sometimes i've found people even like them //
i've started to share less of my work, it keeps that alone feeling quiet. instead of despair i'm beginning to appreciate existing through those moments where i was truly alone. because despite how it feels right now, i'm not alone, really, not like how it used to be. and the feeling of being no one is starting to feel freeing. i'm learning to not mind if people don't like what they see and that the value of what i make of anything is up to me. i'm finally starting to take shape, and i am the sculptor