Y’all I'm so sorry. It's April 10th. I have truly been in my own world. But let's cover March shall we? I hope it’s been good to all of you.
Writing to u from here lol
I took a week off of all social media this month and oh my god I’m human again. Wow. Like, obviously, not the most rare or profound thing, but it was a first for me and the difference felt was severe and immediate.
Things at first felt really empty. While it was nice to be free of the pressure that social media as a concept and a culture puts on me, I also lost my favorite coping mechanism. I scroll when I'm uncomfortable, when I want to procrastinate something, when I feel an emotion bubbling up that I do not want to face yet etc. Tiktok and instagram mostly. Since I can remember I’ve carried feelings of self-doubt and self-consciousness everywhere I go, and since I can remember, social media has been my distraction of choice. There's so much information to take in every second. Why do my problems need my attention when I can just consume the details of everyone else’s lives instead?
Well my problems absolutely did need my attention. And they saw this week as a perfect opportunity to start screaming at me. It took me half the week to figure out what they needed. It was so simple and I feel so cheesy writing this out now but it was literally just love. I had to love my insecurities and embrace them as parts of my story just like I embrace the qualities I “like” about myself, and then they stopped screaming, and then moments of silence became not just bearable but enjoyable. I felt allowed to be a whole person.
And going through the rest of the week without being shown what other people were doing and accomplishing every day helped me continue to feel allowed to be a whole person, with every quality a person has and not just the acceptable ones. It also made it clear to me that so much of the shit I carry Isn't even mine - the judgement that's found in every corner and crevice of a comment section, an ideal lifestyle circulating the internet. I keep all those opinions and all those ideals in my pocket, I live by them without a second thought. For what? If I really sit with some of the things I've been led to believe by social media, I realize I do not fucking care. Like at all. When there's no one to prove myself to, no one to market myself to. I don't care I don't care. Even certain achievements. I think I want them but I just want the validation that I see others get from achieving them. I again, do not actually care. Love learning critical thinking skills at 22.
It was nice to get back in touch with what I do truly care about. And I care about so much!! Truly since that week I feel like I've become so much more intentional about how I spend my time, about what I work towards, etc. and its all stuff I don't want distraction from. My life feels like mine and just mine, what a relief. I have been continuing to write and write and write. There are poems, there are letters, there are songs upon songs, there are psychotic journal entries and shitty drawings. They weave whole stories, ugly and honest and pathetic and wonderfully unacceptable things that I wouldn't have the guts to share in a disposable post or even a journal entry. I have sat face to face with my friends more than I've dm’ed them and that feels really nice. I go outside a lot. Just to wander around and see what the world is up to the old fashioned way.
My friend Jillian filming me on her Super 8 camera.
The film did not develop. But we had a good time anyways.
I desperately want to start a small garden.
My first plant is going in this little whale pot right here.
While I am now back on social media I'm being slow with it. I'm waiting till I actually feel like sharing things to share them. Sometimes it takes longer than I expect until I'm ready. I'm figuring it out. It feels more authentic this way. Thanks for following the journey, and thanks for being present with me here.
Til next month (this month, oops),
Ash