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This Is Us
My Laptop Thinks It’s December 31, 2015
I don’t want to tell it what happens
I’ve been in my parents’ house for four weeks, one month since coming back to Columbus, Ohio. This is the first time I’ve considered the difference between four weeks and one month. It’s the first time I’m considering a lot of things.
I’ve been walking around my neighborhood and looking at all the houses — really looking at them. I find myself trying to figure out how all the rooms fit together, and I imagine people in their own houses thinking about how their rooms fit together, too.
I think we’re all becoming more aware of our homes. Stripping the walls and the rooms bare. Working backward in our minds to decipher how all the layers of furniture and art and memories have been arranged to make the corners and floors and doors into a home.
We’re more aware of our bodies and our breaths. Our hands and our faces and the electricity between them.
One of my last assignments in college was to write about my final senior project. I don’t have it with me now because it lives on a geriatric laptop still in my bedroom in my Brooklyn apartment. My laptop only works when it’s plugged in. If it becomes unplugged, even for a moment, it completely shuts down (I can relate). When you…