Found on the internet are our skeletons.
When humans are long gone, all that will be left are love notes, pleas, sorrows, apologies, forgiveness, regret. They will dig up the earth and find the ghosts of our pasts, of proof that love was here, of proof that love was lost.
The Unsent Project Archive has been around since 2015 and has solely existed for people to leave anonymous notes to people that they can’t face.
Over 5 million anonymous notes have been sent since then — a range of “I’m sorry,” “I miss you,” “I love you,” “Will I ever see you again?”
“Rora Blue [the creator] started the Unsent Project in 2015 to figure out what color people see love in.”
When you submit a note on the website, you have the ability to choose the color of the message. There are 32 color options to choose from. It seems simple enough — after all, it is just a color — but which one really represents the person you’re sending a message to?
When you think of your first love, do you see the deep color blue, the color right before sun finally sets, the sky deepening after the hues of orange and pink? When you think of your brother, do you see the green of their childhood sneakers, the ones that he used to chase you? When you think of your father, do you see red — rage — in place of love?
To write a message on the Unsent Project, it is a conscious choice to do so. Maybe you have hopes that whoever you write to will someday stumble upon your note and pray that it is you. You think: this is everything I have suffered towards, and it now exists on the internet forever.
You search for your own name on the website, naively hoping at least one of these notes is addressed to you. To have proof you were seen, you were loved, you were noticed.
Though the Unsent Project works on anonymity, there is something about it that feels like you are baring an intimate part of yourself. It almost feels like everyone knows what message you sent, that it is not much of a secret. Part of you hopes that everyone knows and feels relief. The other part is ashamed.
After you send a message, you will soon forget about it as the weeks pass. It will sometimes pop-up in your brain at random times, but the deed is done. An internet archive knows you. Your message is out there forever. Your love will be enshrined on a website filled with other messages that are just the same.
Thousands of messages get posted everyday. This will be the case until the internet ceases to exist. Will you be one of those, too?
Let @VALLEYmag on Instagram know.
