Free Fallin'

Welp. Other than this blog and Instagram (which I trimmed down to posts within this past year), I am officially off the grid of social networks for the first time in probably ten years (if we're including cute little Myspace).

I can't describe to you the freedom I am experiencing in that. Even knowing that you're probably reading this because you clicked on the link in my Instagram profile...which takes a few more intentional steps to see how I'm doing as a human than a streaming Facebook news feed dangling the link in your face...that's pretty great to me. Even if I get 5 views rather than 500, damn, you're the only five people I'm really writing to anyway. :)

Anyway, yes. Freedom.

Not because Facebook was an addiction of mine, or a platform for drama, or I'm on a high horse about technology sucking the life out of mankind.

I'm simply learning more and more that the human process of figuring out life is an absolute mess, even when you have a good head on your shoulders and all the best intentions in the world.

And after taking an objective look at how my Facebook and Twitter portrayed who I am and where I've been, I decided I didn't like the idea of my messy and flawed human process documented with words and photos for someone to comb through and assess me by. The past 7+ years have shaped me into the person I am today, and I share the memories of those years with those who were meant to be part of them. Who I am today is something entirely different, and my future as the person I am is so much more relevant to my relationships than my past journey in getting here.

Along with that, it didn't sit well with me that someone would need to use those platforms to get to know me in the first place. If we don't have the ability/desire to know each other in real life, what is the point of status updates and years' worth of pictures of me? Or, if they already know me, it didn't sit well with me that they'd use those platforms to keep up with how life is going for me...rather than an intentional text/phone call that take a little time and effort.

There's also a level of entering into the professional world rather soon, and if I were to ever hop back into the Facebook realm, I'd want to start afresh with a very intentional mindset on what/when/why I use it at all.

Moving on my own and away from "my people" into a new city...for a grad program all about the human condition...have, if nothing else, taught me that we are neurologically interwoven with a lifelong need for human connections. We can't survive without them. And our brains are wired for those connections to be three-dimensional and physically present with other humans. Technology doesn't have the capacity to support the type of connections we need, and I doubt it ever will. I have tried so hard to live vicariously through technology in hopes that my life may as well be happening in the same city as the people I miss who don't live here with me, and it always left me feeling unrested. Meanwhile, my co-workers want to talk about their relationship situations and their families, and my classmates are sharing some of their stories when something we're talking about in a lecture really resounds in them...there are humans right next to me reaching out for the connections I've been staring at my phone for trying to feel with people thousands of miles away. I'd lost touch with the concept of my community being with whoever I lay eyes on, not whoever has private access to my Facebook statuses and pictures.

So I'm feeling free.

Free to let my distant human connections be what they are, and put actual time/energy into them if they really are worth it.

Free to let my local human connections grow in organic ways that take advantage of our proximity...coffee hangouts, grabbing lunch/dinner, anything involving the actual humans I'm living my life next to.

Free to let my hunger for human connections push me to genuinely talk with someone I may not have in a more comfortable state, like the stranger sitting next to me at coffee or the customer at the drive-thru window who's forced to sit there anyway while their drink is being made.

Free to live in the reality that we were never meant to have 500+ friends to keep up with and share our lives with, but respect the comings and goings of those who cross our paths and keep our attentions most focused on those put in front of us this very moment.

This may be my last post for awhile...mainly to push myself to share my heart with real humans rather than whoever can find me online. I'm sure I'll have a few painfully inspirational rants to share, knowing me. And I also know that I've had some genuine encouragement to keep writing, and that what I've written in here has really made some impacts. I want to honor that. So I'm not going anywhere in the long run.

But for now, I leave you for the treacherous road of living life with flesh and blood humans. If that can't be you, text or call for some you-and-me time. If you don't have my number, but want some you-and-me time, but we can't do that in real life...well...let's cross that bridge when we get to it? Hah.

We'll talk soon.