March 3rd, 2010: Katey Coppola

This is not the post I had written to submit today. I agonised over it, because I wanted to share something that I felt was really important to me– maybe even helpful to a person who might read it, today or any other day.

I clicked delete, though. The few friends I showed were incredibly supportive, and maybe one day I will feel comfortable enough to show more people. Not today.

I guess that’s the beauty of Second Life, and that’s what I realised today. Writing this raw and incredibly emotive post that was painfully honest about something that is still so horrific for me to think about– then deleting it. Isn’t that what Second Life is, for all of us?

In real life I am broken and flawed beyond measure. I still struggle to deal with many of the things that have happened to me.

But my Second Life is so different. The day I rezzed, I stood there and thought – “wow”. Although my little January 07 noob was, compared to her transformation since, absolutely hideous, I was amazed.

Here was the blank slate I wanted so badly. I found it so cathartic. Second Life is a collection of servers, like we’re literally a collection of cells. But it was a second chance in a way, the ability to escape everything that had happened and be a whole new person.

In a world of flesh, flesh that makes you feel sick, I would imagine that it’s natural to find solace in a world of pixel skin and untouchable beauty. We exist in a world of perfection and masks, no mirrors. You measure your heartbeats but you can’t measure the hurt you feel, the love you allow.
I’m not ashamed to say that Second Life, a fake world of real people, taught me not just to love myself again, but that I was still a person worthy of love, and always was. It taught me that we are all broken, flawed, and utterly beautiful. It allowed me to find comfort in a solitude that was never lonely even though I had completely closed myself down.
Most people use SL to escape themselves. I found myself.

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Katey Coppola was born in South Africa and moved to England when she was 5 years old. She studies psychology and hopes to become an offender profiler someday. In Second Life, she creates poses for Glitterati, blogs for Fashion Cracked, and spends more on prim feet than she does on tier.