Reconnecting
After surviving a fit of bravery at the weekend, and connecting Twitter, Instagram, Wordpress, and Tumblr together, it occurred to me this evening that I should perhaps put a little more effort into finding the acquaintances I used to follow on the various social networks. Yes, I know – I should never have unfollowed everybody in the first place – I needed to do it though. I needed to step away for a while. I needed to calm the chaos for a while.
If the weekend was “dipping a toe in”, this evening is more like “falling in at the deep end” – following the breadcrumb trail from old friend to old friend, sinking further and further into the social media rabbit hole. I doubt I will descend as far as I have in the past. I used to live down there in the inky depths – it’s not good for you at all – you start comparing your life against the highlight reels surrounding yours, and the comparison is never good.
In a volley of back-and-forth messages with a new friend this morning, I was told that the stories I tell via the blog paint a wonderful picture of family life. I couldn’t help laughing – I’m as guilty as the next person of filtering. Who really wants the truth though? Who really wants to tell the truth? My truth is incredibly mundane at the best of times – days filled with chores, stress, more chores, and then late night head-emptying sessions into a keyboard. Imagine a truthful episode of Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon is playing a role playing game on the computer, Penny is scrolling Instagram on her couch, and Leonard is washing up – for the entire episode – with nobody saying a word to each other.
Anyway. Reconnecting. Let’s get back to the title of the post. I’m busy trying to find a lot of the people I used to follow – at both Twitter and Instagram – and it’s hard. Far more difficult than I thought it should be. I’m been surprised at home many people have “gone private” – hiding their posts from the word. I’ve thought about doing it in the past, but then thought “what do I have to hide?”. I don’t tend to share photos of family life with the internet at all any more though, so the decision becomes an easy one for me. My instagram feed is filled with photos of railway platforms, airports, and far away cities as a consequence.
So – in order to make up for my hopeless discovery skills, if you read this and know I’m not following you elsewhere, let me know (and obviously tell me how to find you at those other places, because – like I said – I’m hopeless).