I’m beginning to know myself. I don’t exist.

I’m the space between what I’d like to be and what others made of me.

Or half that space, because there’s life there too . . .

So that’s what I finally am . . .

Turn off the light, close the door, stop shuffling your slippers out there in the hall.

Just let me be at least and all by myself in my room.

It’s a cheap world.

—Fernando Pessoa