retrospec | (no subject)

It's been a while, hasn't it? I'm afraid things are really quite busy here, and unfortunately our liaison has been compromised. Well...so have a lot of people, actually.

Are you still yourself if you're not the self you were? It's the kind of conversation we've had a lot of times, around here. I've always only been myself, but if I woke up tomorrow as someone else, would I still be me even if I wasn't?

I think rather than worrying about that the best thing I can do is focus on trying to sort things out as best I can. I'm a little worried, actually, but I think I can manage to give everyone a shot even if I can't fix things on my own or even with everyone's help.

But you can help! Or at least I think it will help if you think about what it means to be "you". It's okay if that answer changes or doesn't. Just hold onto that concept and don't let it go. And maybe tell other people what you think it means? Not like I'm saying you have to talk about that. I think usually you all just talk about anything, and I think that is also a good way to hold onto who you are and who you want to be. Sometimes I think it'd be fun, all those parties or little plans. I've never spent much time outside of these walls, did you know?

I don't have time to really ramble, though. Those of you who know what I mean, we're doing our best. Those of you who don't, you do your best too. Pay attention to the things you tell yourself, and I'll try to fix what I can fix.

Please take care.

Joanne Wiseman
Technician 2nd class
Retr

spec Incorporated

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Is it?

That reconciliation might not have happened without you challenging the beliefs I've held since I was a child. The risk of being hurt again so soon after we had stopped speaking if he had said no, even though he would have been well within his right to, was too great.

What I really needed to learn was that my fear of that risk is in fact the true cause of my loneliness and nothing else. I can't keep hiding from it, or I'll end up like my other selves, who sacrificed every opportunity to be happy for the sake of revenge.

And I think this life is preferable to that even with Retrospec and the losses I have endured in it.

It is.

In the end, you heard some truth in what I was saying and decided to do something to make this life better than the one that you are remembering. These are your choices and your life, after all. I merely gave an opinion that you feel had merit.

You're the one who is the master of your destiny and the choices that are available to you, and you created a better life for yourself. So, praise yourself more for what you have done, won't you?

That's true.

Everything that I've experienced in the last year that and everyone I've met during that same period of time that have led me up to this point can't be handwaved with a single conversation.

But that conversation did force me to look at things differently. Being afraid of people, or even hating every last one of them, protects me in the short term but sets me down the path of my predecessors in the long run.

No one had told me that before, adult or peer.

That's right. A single conversation did not lead you to be where you are now.

I'm surprised no one said it before, but I'm glad I'm the one to say it. I find that I say the difficult things no one has said before. I am always looking at the long-term rather than the short-term, the present. For good or ill.

It's certainly a talent of yours.

And that's probably because I had spent most of my life hiding that fear and had gotten so good at it that even adults had a hard time telling the difference between my being afraid and my acting out. After a while I think a lot of them just wrote me off as a lost cause and gave up on me. I clearly didn't want to be their poster child just to make the Joneses like me. The consequences of making myself vulnerable for something that I couldn't guarantee would work out were too great.

But I also was only thinking of the short term... looking beyond the hurts I had experienced and to the long term was impossible for me.

How do you do it, Kei Shigaraki? Is it just one of those things that you learn when you're older?

Most would not compliment it, but I thank you for considering it a positive to my personality.

Well, now your line of sight has opened to have you look a little farther than what you are seeing now. You'll be able to see much more and come to hope for a better future. I won't say that some fear won't come in that hope, but it's still good to chase that dream, isn't it?

As for how I do it... I wouldn't say that it's something learned as one gets older. It merely is something I can do because I'm always looking and wondering what people can become. If I see that future is hazy, I realize it's because their present is a stagnant one for some reason. Usually, the reason for that is due to some miserable state that they are in.