The woman on television was a stranger to me. She stood under the bright, clean lights of the Swiss press conference, her posture perfect, her voice a low, steady instrument of calm authority. She spoke of ‘sustainable greatness’ and ‘cultivating ecosystems.’ She was poised, articulate, and utterly in control.
I watched a replay of it that night on a tablet in my minimalist Zurich apartment, and I felt nothing but a distant, clinical curiosity. The woman on the screen was a construct, a carefully assembled collection of data points designed for public consumption. She was the version of me I had to become to survive.
The real me was curled up on a designer sofa that felt like it belonged to someone else, nursing a cup of chamomile tea and trying to ignore the deep, persistent ache in my
