Scrolling on my cellphone
"It’s 2 AM, and yet here I am, scrolling through my phone’s photo gallery. I found some screenshots, some candid photos, and memes I took from Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and other social media posts. While doing so, I realized that this gallery holds thousands of tiny memories from throughout the years.
Since I have used the same iCloud account since 2017, I have photos from that year that were somehow backed up, even though I don’t recall doing so. And how would I have remembered? 2017 was nine years ago (I used a calculator to compute this, by the way). My heart beat a little faster while scrolling; this was my past. My youth.
I realized that I have always lived like I was being examined under a microscope. When I look at my photos, I was always trying to find the right angle—always calculated, stiff, and practiced. It felt like I could be crucified, criticized, and judged for every wrong move. It was no way to live; it was hard and draining. Maybe that’s a product of being raised as an only child who could do no wrong and had to seem perfect in every way.
It was so exhausting—rehearsing every line, practicing every smile, every walk, and the way I talked. Those were years of not knowing what I wanted and being dictated on how to act. It was like I was alive but barely living. The only true happiness I experienced was when I was with my friends, but at the end of the day, it would still end. That was what I saw when I was scrolling. And maybe that's the reason why I am who I am right now. Years of being supressed and not beling able to live the life I want. And maybe that's why here I am with another 2AM realization. LOL."
