hi hello welcome

Did the mothers whose footprints exist behind those of children within the fossil record feel empty like I do as I tromp through the mud after my own child?

Surely

The context of my existence may be more different than similar to hers/theirs/etc, but I know another woman has followed her child who followed their father, looked at the scene ahead and felt complicated things about their situation.

I was thinking about being young and doodling in an old notebook I saw on a closet shelf. It was my mom’s from school. Yellowed; with a distinct old-paper-smell and a very wide, rusty spiral spine. She had doodled in the margins of the page and I asked her about them. She didn’t share anything just a simple “that notebook is so old, here’s how you draw that dog”.

I don’t know much about my mom. She never expressed much. I want my daughter to know me. I want to be more than a mom

That feels terrible to “type out loud”, but is that really so terrible. I feel that one of the biggest things that I missed out on was getting to know my parents as people. But rarely, if ever, did anyone show just basic humanity at home; they just fit their worker drone archetypes without any tuning into emotional connection through imperfect existence

Anything

I know

Nothing

I am truly a shell

I’ve said it before

I really mean it this time

Truly

I cannot think of a single time I felt this empty and thoughtless

Even times when I found the bottom and kept digging

At least I was thinking then

I am truly a husk

I am lost in the dark in regards to myself

The shitty flashlight I was given ran out of batteries months ago

I am sitting on a log

In a hole

I knew I should leave but wanted to be in bed with you

Now I’ve grown

Into the dark

And grow you did too

Now I sit in this cool night air

You never did follow me there

It’s been a long winter but still

“How do I protect my daughter”

“How can a person preserve childhood innocence in the face of calamity”

“How have parents of past times prepared their children while preparing them for uncertain futures”

Cyclical (fantastical) visions of the future tormented me for many sleepless hours

I often turn to the past to guide my future

Everything we as people experience has been experienced before

Anything we experience repeatedly is a lesson we have not learned from

The caveat to this is that our external conditions have not been experienced by any human being

Ever

We cannot learn from true human experience in such proximity to technology

It muddies the waters

Its surveillance is an entirely new variable in the scope of “learning lessons” and “royally screwing the pooch”

The effect of this intertwining of humans and technology is currently tangling the threads of humanity beyond the ability for us to untangle the mess and live harmoniously with our creations