I Feel Like A Nobody.

I exist here, now, or so I'm told. "I think, therefore I am," but how do I know I think? How do I know these thoughts are mine, or that I am choosing to think them?

That aside... what about the before? The times before the edge of my memory. Because my memory does not cover the entire 20 years I've been alive. Perhaps half that, on a good day. Childhood flashes that just can't be correct. Memories of feeling like I was "placed" here, somehow. Like my reality didn't align. Memories that I don't know where they might belong on the timeline. Friends that I don't know when I could have met. Experiences that I know I experienced!

...but when?

My childhood feels like an unfinished, half-assed PowerPoint presentation, cobbled together from the scraps of different lives. Inconsistencies around every corner. Locations shrouded in dark isolation. How did I get there? With whom did I go? When did I go? What happened?!

Sometimes it's hard to tell what's real and what's not. If the stage framed itself a certain way, I'm certain I could trick myself into thinking I've seen dragons.

And what about the "other" life that I keep seeing? The salty breeze through my hair, the warm rays of sunshine on my face as I stand on a balcony overlooking the beach... the place I know I've never been. The family I do not have. The gut-wrenching nostalgia for something I've never experienced. The face I so pathetically desperately desire, the body I would sacrifice everything for...

I can only compare this moment to what I think I remember. If I remember seeing dragons, well, maybe I saw them in passing. I've seen wolves in passing; just because I do not see them now does not mean that is a false memory. But both of these memories feel just as real. But I know these memories of a different life are false, because I look at my mom next to me and she does not match the mom in these memories. Or is it this life that is fabricated?

The high school prom I remember going to, in a year I was not alive. The college parties I remember celebrating at a school I have not been, with a number of friends I have not once met. The elegant banquets I remember dining at, costing an amount of money I have never laid eyes upon. The cities I remember visiting in states or countries I have never been to.

I don't want to be told these are real. I want to know why I keep seeing them. Why an invisible deity twists my insides with nostalgia at these false memories, and simply ignores the more plausible unknowns.