It’s been so long since I heard you speak. One last click and a long, long bleep

I have such a love/hate with social media, feeling myself drag deeper into my own head (and depression) as I immerse myself in that world and disassociate more with my actual, real life. I've been trying to temper that more, to create and ideate in this space instead of resorting to the small screen with the required square photo. Here is my breakfast, and 3,000 characters about my latest sad thoughts.

I'm worried that by asking people to click here instead of there I will lose the conversations I do hold dear from the experience, that there will be no one to talk to about these things, to validate these feelings. As much as social frustrates me, it has been such an important catalyst for sparking new friendships and rekindling old ones.

I guess maybe I feel too exposed there, especially as life (and I) am transitioning again into this latest chapter. I feel a bit pigeonholed to talk about grief and death and sad things, and even though those inevitably will be things I still want to talk about, my role, my focus, my relationship with my grief is changing once again.

I am not the same person I was two years ago. I know we're constantly changing and the last couple of years have changed everyone, but this is probably one of the most prominent distinctions between "then" and "now" I've felt in some time. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. I see remnants of the old me, watch as she fades out the ends of my once-dyed hair, as I finally allow it (and the rest of myself) to exist in its natural state.

There's a lot that goes with that, a lot to unpack. And while on one hand, I feel strange doing it in front of an audience, I also feel weird doing it completely alone (ie, on this blog where I'm not confident anyone will ever look to see these writings).

But life has a way of sending you whoever--or whatever--it is that's supposed to find you, and maybe it's okay if not everyone tags along for this part of the trip. Maybe I need to find my excitement and validation in the fact I took the time to write instead of how many red hearts appear on my writing. I want to share my journey, but also am not interested in having my journey formatted for some social media personal brand bullshit.

I'm growing out my greys and contemplating growing a human and wondering what it means to be alive, to live simultaneously with such joy and such sadness, always present always shifting, to be happy in this body and embrace it as it changes. And I just don't know if I need to make that A Thing On Social Media, but I would still like to write about it.

So, here goes. A message in a bottle thrown to the seas of search engine algorithms and clicks of fate. Here's to those I'll meet on the other side.