Salma

Dear Journal,

Today, we got a weird assignment at school. I was so tired and wanted nothing more than to take off my VR set and disconnect ugh. Mrs. Murphy asked us to write about how our lives would look like if we lived like our great-great-grandparents in the year 2023. God, that's crazy. How am I supposed to know about any of that? I guess I could look it up on a database; I know some of my grandparents had some tech, but I could have never lived like they did. I mean, if they wanted to see the world, they would have to actually go there like they would save up for vacations and stuff. It's so strange to think about how they lived. It's kind of sad. I know back then, they didn't have to live in the domes, but it's so weird to think that they actually lived the lives we can just create. I can set my VR headphones to any time or place, but they can't. Like, what did they do for fun? My mom told me my great-grandpa used to take an actual bus, like before they were banned...actually, I think the first VR headset came out that year, but I heard nobody could really afford it because, you know, people had to buy stuff like that.

But sometimes, I wonder what it would be like though. Like, would it feel different? To actually feel the sun's warmth on my skin or to smell the rain soaking into the dirt. I look back at my great-great-grandparent's old photos from 1999. Photos of them running around on sandy white beaches of what I am told used to be a place called Florida. I see their tan lines, REAL ones created by the sun. I see the sunglasses and hats they wear to protect themselves because something called sunburn used to be a thing...we learned about that in school. It's a weird feeling like I am missing out because I am not. If I wanted to, I could also transport myself to that VERY same beach, maybe even recreate those very same photos. But they are not the same, and something about being able to create something but never really being part of it hurts.

Signing off for now, Jenny