day 281.
When I went to calculate how many days deep we’re in to 2020, I literally gasped at the number — partly because it’s been 227 days since my last update on my Instagram fast, and partly because the year is almost over…which means baby girl is almost here! Time is weird, man.
This morning I woke up to this not-so-little peanut kicking up a storm and imagined her in there like, “Mom the dogs are whining, it’s time to get up!!” I’m told that most moms agree that the activity level of their babies in-utero reflected their temperaments as children. If that’s the case, we’re going to have our hands full next year because this one is a busy little thing. Being able to feel/see distinct kicks is still a relatively new thing, and I’m pretty obsessed. Every little reminder that she’s in there safe and sound, growing like a weed so we can meet her in a few months, puts my mind at ease.
Anyways, that little anecdote was just a stall to avoid my day 281 confession:
I have not stuck to my fast as closely as I planned to.
And I would like to jump on the “I blame Covid” bandwagon, even though I hate it. Originally, I set out not only to refrain from posting on my personal Instagram for a year, but also to cut out scrolling entirely. I stuck to that pretty firmly until the day lockdown started (remember 14 days to flatten the curve? LOL) when I reverted back to social media as an anxiety salve. Which we all know is ridiculous, because social media has been the most toxic place in all of this. I let myself indulge, promising that it would only be for a little while to “stay connected”, but that little while in March all of a sudden turned into October. So, there it is. Although I have not posted on my personal feed in all this time, I have been scrolling just as much, if not more than I was before I started all of this. I’m up to date on the engagements, the baby announcements, what you all had for dinner last week. My phone dutifully announces my failure to me each week as it lets me know my screen time has increased. I even broke down and posted on my Insta story for a bit to keep everyone updated on the local fire situation, telling myself it would help cut down on the amount of texts/calls I was getting with people checking in. But the reality is, it would have been okay if I hadn’t done that.
*Sigh*
Even though I wish I could say I stuck to my plan 100%, all is not lost. I ran into someone the other day who was very excited to see me and catch up about how my pregnancy is going because I’ve been “radio silent on social” about it. It was refreshing to begin the conversation with “Wow, how are things going??” vs. “I saw that you started feeling kicks last Tuesday!” and I counted that as a win.
It has also made it abundantly clear who takes the time to not only wonder how we’re doing, but actually check in. And not surprisingly, it’s all the same people who have always taken the time to check in with me directly, even when I was active on social. I want to make it clear that I don’t fault the people in my life that I don’t hear from unless I reach out. The more I dive in to the world of breaking up with social media, the more I’ve realized that our circles are not supposed to be as big as they are. The amount of people we can successfully stay in touch with in a meaningful, impactful way is a mere fraction of what we attempt — and what apps like Instagram trick us into thinking is possible. And because of that, many of us walk around with this unnecessary guilt that we don’t stay connected to our people enough when, in reality, our expectations for connectivity are completely unrealistic. The trouble comes when we correlate our connectedness with our love for a person, i.e. I only talk to this friend once a year, so that must mean our friendship isn’t great. And that, my friends, just isn’t true. I have friends that I only see once every few years whom I will always hold dear to my heart, and each time we get to interact over the years is just as cherished as the time I spend with friends I get to see every week. I don’t love one friend more than the other, our lives have just diverged in a way that makes the logistics of our friendship different. Social media has given us a window into those people’s lives that we wouldn’t have had before, which is often a really wonderful thing. But it also comes with a nasty guilt that is rooted in something that isn’t real.
On the flip side, not having an outlet to post updates to the masses has also made it abundantly clear who I want to keep updated — and it’s fewer people than I thought. Once I strip away the condition of how I want to be perceived by others (and, let’s be honest, the people who I’d secretly like to flaunt my curated feed in front of) I’m left with a small handful of people, mostly consisting of my parents and siblings. AND THAT’S OKAY. If you’re not someone who is getting regular bumpdates and photos of my dogs, that doesn’t mean I don’t love you or appreciate you in my life. And it doesn’t meant that I won’t be happy to send you photos of the baby when she arrives if you ask, or catch up with you for an hour over coffee sometime. The other day, Jesse came home and said “We have a pretty peaceful life here, don’t we?” And we really, really do. But that isn’t by accident, it’s from living within our bandwidth instead of stretching ourselves rice paper thin. It’s from taking space from the constant Information Station that is social media, and being realistic about what we can offer in our day-to-day relationships.
So, what do the next 85 days look like for me?
I would like to reinstate my no-scrolling rule, effective today. I have to do some measure of it for my job, but beyond that I won’t be indulging in my regular “catch up” seshes for the rest of the year and will keep you updated on how that’s going. I still haven’t decided what 2021 is going to look like in the Instagram world, but I think it’s okay if I cross that bridge when I get there. What I do know is that I won’t be one who chronicles my child’s life on social media, and a birth announcement may be all Instagram gets from me. I also know that if you are someone who would like to hear from me more often, I would love to know. Just because I’m comfortable in my new, tighter circle of communication, doesn’t mean there isn’t some room for growth — I just want a text or a phone call from you instead of a friend request ;-)
Love Always,
Sarah