i built them an island and then I disappeared (open apology letter)
dear villagers,
i owe you a very deep apology.
i know it’s been a while. actually, i don’t know if “a while” actually describes the number of years that have passed since i last logged on. i think about you more than you probably realize.
i wonder if the weeds have completely taken over. i wonder if there are cockroaches running around in my house, creepin’ beneath the furniture i spent an ungodly number of hours arranging. i wonder if the café is empty. i wonder if k.k. slider still comes to play on saturdays, and if anyone sits there to listen.
most importantly, i wonder if you remember me. because i remember, well, you.
you were there during a difficult time in my life, when sometimes disappearing onto an island for a few hours felt easier than being in the real world. you never asked me to explain myself. you were just happy to see me.
you gave me gifts simply because i showed up. you encouraged me. you told me to take care of myself. you said little catchphrases that somehow became part of my everyday vocabulary. you watered flowers. you sang together in the plaza. we played cards. you came over to my house, wandered through every room, and complimented the plants like you hadn’t seen the exact same monstera twelve times already.
and i tried to give you a good life in return.
i did everything tom nook asked of me, which, looking back, was an extreme amount of unpaid labor. i collected the outfits from the able sisters. i filled almost the entire museum. i built the café. i traveled to harv’s island. i decorated your homes. i even made some of you vacation houses because apparently maintaining one island wasn’t enough responsibility for me.
i spent hundreds of hours literally trying to make our island beautiful. and then i left it. poof. no goodbye in sight.
in my defense, you guys were not pulling your weight. seriously, you weren’t.
i’m sorry, but you need to know why. every time i turned around there were weeds all over. you’re right next to it, pick it up. i was digging up fossils, building bridges, shaking trees, planting flowers, moving buildings, terraforming entire sections of land, donating to the museum, managing the economy, and apparently serving as the island’s sole landscaping department.
as you can probably guess, i got really tired.
so i left. into the night.
and now, somewhere inside my nintendo switch, you’re living there. maybe you’re wandering around the island wondering where i went. maybe you occasionally stop outside my house, weeds growing around the mailbox, waiting for the lights to come back on. i hope i turned the lights off.
i hope you’re still singing in the plaza. sorry, i don’t know the words.
i hope brewster is making coffee for somebody. no pigeon milk, please.
i hope that the museum still feels beautiful even though there are a few empty spaces i never managed to fill.
i hope the vacation homes are holding up.
and isabelle, i am so sorry. i have a horrible gut feeling that when i left, all admin responsibility fell directly onto you. i hope you’re actually taking the breaks you deserve. i hope you’re drinking something besides whatever is in that little glass on your desk. frankly, you deserve a vacation more than anyone. you probably hate me, and girl i honestly would too.
whenever one of you asked to move away, i took it really personally. i know. you wanted to explore. you wanted new adventures. perhaps there were other islands with more responsible resident representatives who actually picked their weeds. but i loved having you there.
i was so afraid of letting you leave that somehow i ended up being the one who left instead. and then well, i trapped you there. i know you can’t leave without your girl. turns out, i’m the scarlet witch.
maybe that’s the part that makes me feel a little guilty when i think about turning the game back on. like, are you mad? do you realize how much time has passed?
i know you aren’t actually sitting inside my switch waiting for me. i know you’re just pixels and code. but that doesn’t make what you meant to me imaginary.
for a while, you gave me somewhere to go.
i could walk along the beach. rearrange some flowers. swim in the ocean. see a shooting star. buy an outfit i absolutely did not need. sit beneath a tree. visit a friend. listen to a song.
there was always something small waiting for me tomorrow.
a fossil to find. a flower to water. a new item at nook’s cranny. someone wandering around who would cheer when they saw me.
maybe that’s why i’m kinda scared to come back.
maybe you scold me for disappearing.
maybe you’ll ask where i’ve been.
or worse, maybe you won’t remember me at all. or tell me a cringey catchphrase i made up a few years ago.
but i secretly hope, somewhere beneath all those shells, the island still remembers that i loved it.
because i did. i really, really truly did.
and if i ever find the courage to come home, please give me a few minutes before coming to visit. i have some mail to check, my hair to fix, and cockroaches to kill.
with love and an unreasonable amount of guilt,
your former resident representative