I don’t see things getting better. I don’t see people aging gracefully. The people around me are exhausted, and everyone seems afraid of the future. I’m told to live in the moment, as if the present were a balm and not just another waiting room. Maybe it’s only a distraction, a way to delay waking up as miserable as everyone else.

Once, my mother — after confessing how tired she was of living — said to me, “Sometimes I think to God, was I a joke? I was just spare parts.” Those same voices tell me to look ahead, to release what’s behind me. But I keep my camera close — my little transporter, my clock-rewinder, the only machine that lets me speak with time. Through it, I’ve learned to feel time clearly, and that kind of clarity comes at a cost.

There’s a suffocation between holding on and letting go, between the hands of what has been and what will never arrive. Grief and urgency blur together. It’s tender, it’s restless. The future feels dim, so I hold on to what glows behind me. I want to meditate on the things that once made me want more — to honor myself, to love who I was. Maybe I no longer have the strength to help others look forward, but I can offer a reminder to close your eyes and return to those small, glittering moments: the hum of a lawn mower on a summer morning, crickets at night, the rush of being afraid of the dark.

God, what I’d give to fear the dark again — to feel my heart race for no reason but imagination. Now I’d have to jump in front of a speeding bus to feel that same spark. Life wasn’t simple because worries were lighter; it was simple because small moments were enough. Petrichor. Warm asphalt. Sneaking down the hall at night. The humming of a broken pool filter in the summer. Bats fluttering in July’s night.

“I WAS JUST SPARE PARTS” is how I make sense of myself after everything. It’s not just about making pictures or poems; it’s about tracing the fragments of a self that keeps scattering. My images are about thresholds — the dance of door frames, the quiet creak of floors at night. They live between things, where memory, time, and self tangle and blur.

Stay tuned.
Gregor