as a kid, i was obsessed with restarting all my video games the second that the save file stopped being perfect. once i flunked a puzzle on professor layton, or my animal crossing town lost my favourite villager, i’d do a complete factory reset and start the whole thing again ‘but perfectly this time’. i really cannot emphasise how much i did this with literally everything - i’d buy new notebooks if i had to cross something out in the old one! this blank slate concept was placating to me
but in real life, unfortunately, you can’t really do that unless you have a complex plan to shed your entire identity, erase your census data/bank details/entire internet history/social media/probably assassinate your loved ones
this freaks me out a bunch because everytime i meet someone new, i start estimating how long it’ll take before i ‘ruin it’ and they see a bad version of me instead of the version i wish they were seeing! usually this happens the first time a person sees me cry, or panic, or i accidentally say something really personal. i want to start afresh all the time and try promise them that the less-than-ideal version of me isn’t ACTUALLY me. like give me another try, i’ll do better this time. but (sadly) there’s no save file erase button and people will continually hold ever shifting ideas about what kind of person you are
fresh starts don’t exist! and to console myself about this fact, i fake them. i give myself a tiny milestone, like washing my face and making a cup of coffee, and that’s my fresh start. that’s my new go at life, that’s my turnaround moment where i’m gonna be all better from now on. and i’ll fail at it, over and over, but it keeps me hopeful each time.
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