what's the message you've been pretending you didn't see?
it might be a text, an email, a voicemail. you saw it arrive. you made a small decision not to deal with it. that decision has its own weight.
every day there's one live question, the same for everyone. answer it anonymously, see what other people said. it's all gone in seven days.
answer today's question →write down who the message is from and what it roughly said, or what you think it said. then write about the moment you chose to look away. what were you doing? what feeling arrived with the notification? sometimes we ignore messages because we are tired. but sometimes we ignore them because opening them means something will become real. write about what becomes real if you reply. write about what you are keeping at a distance by not replying. be honest about whether this is a boundary you are holding, or a conversation you are hiding from. those two things can look very similar from the outside.
- write about what you imagine the message says, even if you haven't fully read it.
- ask yourself what replying would commit you to.
- consider whether the person who sent it knows you saw it.
this is for you if there is a notification you keep scrolling past, and the act of ignoring it has started to take up more energy than responding would.