Peering In From The Outside

Aren't hard drive failures just the best? What's even better is that in the time between the failure a few weeks ago and buying a new one the other day, I've had plenty of time to compile my notes. -There's a family of seven that always leaves in threes, and it seems they have to be invited back into their own house. Strange family tradition? I have to doubt it's just a family quirk. Why wouldn't the adult at least have a key? -The same car circles the block every day at the same time. Creating the image of normalcy to account for some variation in my daily schedule? -Fake plants in the garden, watered daily at the same time. Again, creating the illusion of a normal suburb. Why go through all the trouble? Why not just have real plants? There's more, but I'm keeping those on physical paper for the time being. I've begun noticing errant patterns elsewhere in town. The dollar theatre hasn't updated its selection since I moved back,

Four times per day. That's how often the sullen old man across the street waters his plants. Plants made of synthetic fibers and paint. A yellow car from the 80s drives around the block thrice before pulling out onto the main road. Every morning, at 8 AM sharp. Six of the ten houses on my street are either couples with no children or singles living alone, like myself. I've been told a common symptom of various psychological disorders is seeking a pattern where none exists, cherrypicking the evidence to support the conclusion. I've spent all week observing the same patterns emerge, day after day, timed to the very second. Not even the world's most punctual worker with obsessive-compulsive disorder will circle the block three times and pull off to their commute at exactly 8 AM, not a second after the clock turns, and be gone by exactly 8:05. Which begs the question, why uphold the illusion of everyday suburbia only to allow erroneous patterns to emerge? I highly

Five years. I spent five years having doctors tell me my war against the Faceless was all in my mind. Five years maintaining a facade, putting on a mask and pretending that yes, of course, they were right, and I needed help. I spent five years with many sleepless nights, gazing out a barred window and seeing the nemesis to all humanity standing outside the institution, writhing tentacles reaching through the gate, quivering with longing. Five years hearing the screams of the irreversibly-broken as they, too, laid eyes on madness itself. These are not five years I will look back on in my golden years with fondness and nostalgia. Even now, I wake up every morning and slip on a mask. Just the quiet girl whose doctors are helping her. That's who my neighbors see--a murderer trying to reform, to put her life back together. In a way, they're not wrong. I realize now, in retrospect, how far I'd fallen and how many cognitive biases I'd erected, barriers hastily cast to shield

Don't mind the removed posts. False starts, misled journal entries from a time when I wasn't myself. It's been years. I don't know what possessed me to look this blog up again. What drives me to resume painting my thoughts on a blank white canvas, when simply logging in invites risk. Mayhap there's a story to tell yet. Maybe I just can't let well enough alone. Maybe none of us can, and that's what drew us to the board in the first place, six years ago.