please, just leave me alone.

This is a piece I did first semester of my senior year in high school. The photographs are taken in the bathroom at my parents' house. I started shooting spaces that had been labeled "home" but felt nothing like it. These were spaces I was embarrassed by and could only show people through photographs. The words are thoughts that used to run through my head while I sat in my room at home, "Please don't knock on the door, just leave me alone,  just let me be." 

I have been in Boston a little over a week and realized that those same thoughts still run through my head while in my room in the dorm. People knock on my door and I pretend I'm not home or that I can't hear them. When the floor creaks outside I hold my breath until footsteps pass on down the hall. 

I've thought for the past week this is just a tendency I've developed because I'm not completely comfortable. But after looking back at pieces like the one above, I realized this has been embedded in my personality all along. I am more of a loner than I thought, but perhaps this isn't a bad thing. Because at the end of the day all I have is me, and that person must be taken care of in order for any of this to be successful. 

So for now, my loner label is fine by me. Perhaps someday riding on the subway or sitting in the coffee shop I'll find someone else tired of being lonely and we won't have to make nice or pretend we are who we aren't. So go ahead college, encourage socialization and making friends at any cost. I'll be up in my room finding new ways to create and exist because for now, that is all I need. 

"Please, just leave me alone" 

Created September 10, 2011