So. Summer. Not bad at all. I spent June traveling most of the month; first to Cherry Grove Beach, to hang with some cousins for a few days in the most beautiful setting; we had an apartment in an old resort building that was on the point - one side of the place looked out toward the ocean, with the back deck facing a peaceful salt marsh. Relaxing days of swimming, sunning, grilling, and general catching up with family.
I reluctantly left Cherry Grove, with a pound of steamed shrimp and some cocktail sauce made by the cuz (her mom's recipe) and headed up to Lex to see my mom. Spent the next 3 weeks hanging out, visiting friends, seeing my sis, going back to WVA to visit more family, and then P came up with Cricket to hang out for a few more days. All in all, an enjoyable vacation, and now I'm back home.
Looking at the above account, I realize that this is what happens when one doesn't write very often anymore. SO much happened, and yet it was all so huge that I just want to sluff over it and get to The Next Thing. Which of course is the navel gazing that I so love to do. But it's hard to just hurl oneself into this platform once a year and have it be a good outlet for my demons and anxiety closet. I get impatient with other bloggers who do that, so I'll try and slow my roll here and pick one small thing to detail at a time.
Social Media Fast
This sprang from a conversation my cousin's husband and I were having at the beach about the all-pervasive tyranny of social media in our time. How we felt pressure to check, comment, like, respond almost constantly on our respective platforms, and how so often, when we were together with friends, conversations centered around sharing shit we'd seen on Facebook. How it's hard to have an opinion that isn't influenced by someone else in your circle right now, and how original ideas and thoughts are hard to come by. So this was weighing heavy on my mind in June, WHILE I was at my mom's house. My mother doesn't have internet by choice. I have many thoughts about that, and the way she has removed herself, to some degree, from current modern society, but it is damn peaceful at her house, and I always get tons of reading and knitting done there as a result. So it's nice that way.
I came back home though, to the Ravelry ban, (which I support) and to my Instagram account, with a firestorm of posts on both sides of the issue, as well as much kerfuffle about the politics of Pride month, plus the usual barrage of posts about the latest shitstorm out of Washington. (really, 2 1/2 years into this administration has been so fucking exhausting - in part because of the actual events, and in part because of the re-posting, sharing, and reacting that everyone gets sucked into over said events.) I found myself diving down rabbit holes of posts, reading backstories, and in general, wasting hours of my life on the dramas of people I don't actually know. All the while, rattling in my head, beyond the noise, was the echo of the conversation about the noise. I had essentially the same discussion with a friend last week, and I realized that I needed a break, I wanted a break, and that godsdammit, I could take a break. I unfollowed some folk. I took Instagram and Facebook off my phone and logged out of them on my computer. I'm spending less time on the internets, and it feels good. I feel like I'm getting some time back, and this thing could go on for awhile, and I probably wouldn't suffer.
There's the FOMO, of course. And the feeling that there are some friends with whom I am disconnected right now by virtue of my eschewing social media, and I wish it weren't so. But for the most part, I'm working on it, and digging it. TRUTH: I do pop onto FB and Instagram to check messages. I probably will return to posting, at some point, let's say in August, if it feels right.
For now, though, this is my platform.
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