I WAS NEVER REALLY THERE
Our memory functions in a remarkable way, akin to a virtual theater. Many of my childhood memories appear as negative images, underdeveloped and waiting to be processed. Some others reside in an intermediary space, existing halfway between the present and the past, reality and imagination. I recall my childhood and adolescence as a perplexing stage in which I perpetually felt like an outsider. Books, comics, movies, and video games served as my escape from a world where I didn't quite fit in. Thanks to these mediums, I could connect with unfamiliar realms. Donning a helmet and clutching a book, I played the role of a time traveler, projecting myself into the future.
'I was never really there' initiates a dialogue that explores the concealed connections between distant and seemingly contrasting versions of myself, spanning both the past and the present. It's akin to a trading card game played between the child I was in 1984 and the ever-evolving individual I've become in 2022, all in an attempt to discern which of these versions truly occupies the present moment.
