briefly: time capsule
Last night, while putting together an archival version of the Solstice Gala project I worked on two years ago, I came across a digital time capsule - my Imgur account. It dates back to about 2013 - I was right when I became a capital T teenager! Discord wasn’t really something in my field of awareness until 2016, so this site was the dumping ground for all my silly little pictures.
And a time capsule it was - though much of it was deleted at some point, I had a bunch of screenshots from my dinky little purple Acer laptop I had at the time, copies of various lovingly made Minecraft skins, pictures of my cats… I cringed a bit seeing my old-old art, but I was also a literal teenager, having fun with my friends playing games and drawing silly stuff.
I think I get a better idea of why people are as nostalgic as they are for their childhoods, to go home to the Time That Was. Figuring out the intricacies of taxes when you permanently cross state lines or buying a used car are things younger me didn’t have to worry about. I could just go home, play video games, draw on my dinky little Wacom on my dinkier little laptop.
I’m not sure if younger me would like current me. I think she’d look up to me for being an older artist, but wonder why I didn’t go to art school like she wanted to. I have a drivers license, which by rural Ohio kid standards is achieving godhood, but that does little when you have no car. I definitely think she’d be envious of living in Phoenix, if for nothing else to get away from the loneliness of a small town. We’d bond over our mutual love of The Elder Scrolls.
She’d probably also get into beef with me over telling her to let go of petty beefs over stupid shit. She’d probably do that thing I and my friends at the time did and share art of people we didn’t like in our “secret mod chat” and just relentlessly bully them, all while acting outwardly kind to the very people we bullied - those which, outside of a select few, we had petty childish vendettas with. What a terrible waste of time and energy.
Idunno. I saw a picture of my old cat who passed away a few years ago and it made me want to cry. I miss her.