A-0000: Opening the file

I’m calling myself The Indexer because that’s the closest I can get to the role I’m trying to inhabit here. I do not set out to be a storyteller, or a witness in the traditional sense. My goal is to sort through what remains: fragments, inconsistencies, and the splinters that lodged in unexpected places. 

This file isn’t meant as a memoir, an exposé, or even a litigation (as tempting as it may be to me). Instead, it’s an attempt to chart an upbringing that doesn’t align with what most people would recognise as normal, and to consider how those early conditions ripple outward into the present. They impact my quiet negotiations of being an adult, attempting to reconcile with my past.

The entries will arrive out of order. I make no guarantees about the content. Inevitably, some entries will be sharp, some will be blurred, and some will likely contradict each other. I suppose that’s part of the point: Memory isn’t an objective archive. Each time we access a memory, we overwrite it in some way, making each retelling a little less real. Between the haze of time, the haze of trauma, and the confusion of your caregivers telling you "that didn't happen, and if it did, it wasn't that bad", well, let's just say that I’m working with what I've got.

For the sake of organisation, I’m assigning each entry a prefix. I will use R to mark entries dealing with the past, and A when the entry is some form of commentary on them. P marks entries dealing with The Indexer's present-day experiences, and C will be used for cross-references to current events and politics. These indices are not meant to create a perfect timeline of events, but rather to impose some order on the fragments of a disordered mind. 

I can't promise completeness, and I won’t promise clarity. I’ll only promise honesty in the reconstruction, even when the pieces don’t fit.

Names and details may be changed at my discretion, not to protect those implicated, but to maintain my anonymity. 

The file is open. 

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