I can’t keep up with myself. I have moments where I want to throw my phone out and only communicate with postcards and letters but then I’m reminded of all the people I met while traveling. I wouldn’t want to lose touch with any of them in the hopes of one day being able to send them a text saying “hey, i’m in your country. you got plans?”.
I find myself being strangely obsessed with sharing my life & thoughts. I want to be seen, heard and enjoyed but I feel guilty for admitting so. It feels a little exhibitionistic to me.
I’ve had a weird relationship with the internet from a young age. I remember seeing a computer for the first time. It was square and big and wide and I wondered what my mom did on it for days on end. I would beg her to let me use it but when she finally let me, I had no clue where to begin. I couldn’t spell or really type any words beside my own name but jabbing at the keyboard and seeing letters pop up was ridiculously intriguing and the introduction to a medium I struggle with daily over a decade later.
I’ve moved around a little bit when I was young but we always stayed in the same region. You’d say it wasn’t a big change but moving half an hour away felt like I was in another country at the age of 8. Everyone spoke a different dialect, I felt even more excluded then I had before and the bullying continued even at a new school. The internet was a refuge.
I found places like Blogger.com, Stardoll and Neopetz . One of my babysitters introduced me to Stardoll and it gave this unlimited sense of control over my identity. I curated an entire fantasy world of what it would be like to live without being afraid of how I was being perceived. I saw her blog on tumblr on which she reposted as many pink, fuzzy, ballerina esque photo’s as she could. I’d been amazed by all the photo’s and wanted to do the same. She’d written me a note spelling out the word “tumblr” for me because I couldn’t remember anything for longer than 10 minutes. I lost every note she wrote and forgot the website every time she mentioned it. Maybe, I could’ve been the next acacia brinley if I had remembered. Maybe I would’ve had all of my nudes leaked.
Speaking of being perceived, I used to want to become an influencer. If you scroll down on my instagram you can see the proof right there. I tried so hard. The posed photo’s. Promoting “body positivity” while hating the way I looked - a term which I once had a very intense DM about bc I am white and skinny and absolutely the wrong person to promote “being okay with your size”. (i still need to change an old caption but i don’t want to erase my unknowing&relearning) Swearing my eating disorder was over while it’s still something I struggle with every single day. Trying to be a positive influence when you hate everything about yourself makes it really difficult to write a catchy instagram caption.
I love having the world at my fingertips. I can find any community I’m interested in and add myself onto any group/chat/collective. While doing so I’m walking around the world with my head down thinking I’m seeing the whole world wide web but instead i’m missing the whole wide world.
I long for community, deep connections, music and anything else that will make me feel alive. Instead I numb myself by liking little photo’s on a screen thinking I’m motivating myself/ inspiring myself or just simply because I need to soothe my anxiety because I’m terribly afraid of what other people think of me (no matter how many middle finger photo’s i post).
