The Weight of the Path

We leave pieces of ourselves behind in the things we no longer use. A coat that no longer fits the shape of our shoulders. A pair of boots that have walked too many miles on hard, unforgiving ground. We think we are moving forward, shedding the skin of who we were, but the objects remain. They hold the shape of our feet, the rhythm of our stride, the specific pressure of our exhaustion. There is a quiet violence in keeping them. To look at them is to confront the ghost of a version of yourself that is still walking, still tired, still searching for a door that has long since been locked. We accumulate these artifacts of our own history, stacking them in corners, hoping they will eventually lose their meaning. But they do not. They wait. They are the evidence of the distance we have traveled and the things we were forced to leave in the hallway.

Jessica Gershen has taken this image titled First World Problems. It captures the heavy silence of things left behind. What do you see when you look at what remains?