It feels fake.
It’s funny— I just watched the respective parts of the Tati/James Charles stuff and it left me mentally and emotionally exhausted on their behalf.
And I just got to thinking about loyalty, respect, reputations, expectations, kindness, etc.
More importantly I got to thinking about what I want for myself in all of that.
I was lucky to have left my phone at home all of yesterday while I enjoyed Mother’s Day with my favourite people. There was a lot of clarity, heightened sensation, and just an overall sense of calm I hadn’t felt in a while.
Stark contrast with this morning, which featured me basking over my feed of my personal grids, featuring highlights and moments I’ve captured since the fall and beyond.
I look at past photos centralized around scapes, food, people and animals
And compare what was, with what seems to be, and what is
And it makes me disappointed.
To know that I felt like I was compensating
For not “being enough”
For not “offering enough”
For not “having enough value to pursue”
For not being the sweet end of some transactional deal and feeling a pressure to be “okay” with transgressions towards me that I know will probably just repeat themselves down the line, toward someone else.
And so my posts, I feel, have gravitated towards myself, my appearance, etc.
Vain, self-centered, overfiltered, disgusting. You can’t win.
Part of it, I tell myself, is that I went so long neglecting myself for others, and only now am I emerging from behind the camera.
Part of it, I partially want to admit, is part of an unabashed, grand, flex-scheme, like something out of Legally Blonde.
Part of it, I inwardly fear, is that I have taken on a new obsession with a desire to “prove myself” [something I very clearly do not have to do but feel like defaulting to anyways].
But all of it—I know—is all wrapped up in a burning desire to move forward, full force, full speed ahead.
I feel it tug on my conscience every day.
Why, oh why, am I so wrapped up in a mess of square by squares that do nothing but enable FOMO, provoke comparison, and steal joy, all wrapped in hits of serotonin and a need to feel seen?
Great question.
It’s social media not antisocial media.
And yet, sometimes I feel like it’s nothing but the latter.
…But.
When I re-examine, once I’ve dropped my temporary, overt pessimism, I see a host of memories, a collage of moments so near as dear to me that having them all in one place to peruse through from time to time fills me with so much love for the things and people and memories I’ve been able to accumulate in my time here, none of which are forced into an aesthetic “theme”— rather, raging with vibrancy and color, to mirror how I perceive them.
And I want to hold on to that.
But the other thoughts loom, still.
I guess it’s just a matter of finding a balance of the two.