a Pseudo Life
Mary Margaret Hughes
To make a home in a new place, someone else’s home at that, is a delicate balance. How much of myself can I leave scattered in this place before I become it? Routines slip on and off like garments; they may be new, but the shape is one I know well.
The not-really-my-closet contains every shirt I own in this Life. Material objects collect with newfound curiosity on the notreally-my-shelf. Mementos of the Pseudo Life I live here in this Pseudo Home! And yet, it all gets held at arm ' s length by the awareness that it is temporary.
I stumble, at times, through interactions and scream under every word that I remain a stranger in this place. A stranger welcomed, but a stranger nonetheless. A wanderer connecting habits and memories and found friends. Stability and stillness are not in this stranger’s nature. It’s to float, this living is.
More than anything, this life begets curiosity and excitement.
A peek into what might have been had I been born here. My life becomes boring by comparison. What good are my shapes when I could have someone else’s?
This line of questioning turns uncomfortably personal. What distinguishes my life from my Pseudo Life? Much in place, tone, activity. But the same: myself. Changed, but the same. That fact never changes, no matter the life I live.
This privilege, this burden. Perhaps the weight is shouldered more on others than myself. No true home, no chosen possessions, familiarity not found in surroundings but in movements. I make it. I ache it. I breathe it. The Pseudo Home absorbs some of me as I do it.
And I am better for it. I say goodbye to my Pseudo Life, my Pseudo Home, and wonder: What Life will I lead next?