are u ok or aita?

still processing

i accidentally opened the photo app on my macbook to old pictures from 2018, 2019 and an immediate and overwhelming sense of sadness swept over me at how innately happier i looked/i know that i was. like duh i was younger blah blah but it’s not that - i feel as though i lost ~*something*~ inside of myself, dulled by the experience of living through a pandemic in the age of technology and by what has come after.

i realize that i have been silently mourning the general way i approached my daily life before the pandemic. so many things unthought of and unsaid that could have just stayed that way/that have added no value to our human experience - too much time inside, physically isolated, left with our thoughts and our phones…it really could have gone either way.

while changes have been gradual, they have also been plenty. and in this age of productivity, we’ve dismissed our feelings, our true and very real emotions. perhaps talking about this will help me heal..? lol i’m asking

me in 2018 with a legitimately lighter aura