The Best Place to Start

A case for (over)sharing slash the past two years have been The Worst.

I am pretty sure I am not an oversharer on social media. In my late 20s and early 30s I for sure posted obscure song lyrics as my Facebook status probably in the unadmitted hopes that the person I was making out with at 3AM vaguely dating would be able to interpret my mood or current saga from a scrap of a Two Gallants song and immediately show up on my doorstep with flowers. Lolz. Over the ensuing years I have posted a lot of pictures of me fitnessing, quite a few breakfast salads, and a grip of assuredly tipsy taking the ferry at night OMG I LOVE NEW YORK photos. A look at my feed recently and for the foreseeable future (guys there are like 3,000 pictures. I’m so sorry.) will tell you that I just got married. 

As I’ve gotten older I’ve made a conscious decision to curtail boomeranging allll the cocktails and immortalizing each and every sweat angel. For no other reason than I began to think to myself: Does anyone really give a shit that I just did 100 burpees or that my *jam* just shuffled onto Spotify and you should know how impeccable my taste in music is? The answer is: No. No one really gives a shit. But what I am starting to think is: Who cares? 

Because honestly I’m here for the oversharers and imperfect social media users — isn’t that the whole point? This is what I’m doing, the things I’m feeling, and the way I see the world. All these outlets are just that: outlets. So, yes, 100% absolutely show me the horrible live laugh love mug you put on your office desk to remind you of life outside your cubicle. And, yes please do post a terribly lit picture of your gross lunch that looks like it was taken with a 1968 polaroid in a bomb shelter and explain to me that a ketoovopescatarian diet is literally the only way to eat and everyone else is stupid. Get after it Susan, dance like no one’s watching. 

And, it’s not to say that we MUST live the entirety of our lives on social media, but there is no denying that it offers the opportunity to Connect in ways both serious and memey. In our very check out my latest post-facing world, participating less and doom scrolling observing more has made me feel a little isolated, a little othered. I’m still doing a burpee here or there and I’m still listening to better music than you, sure, but I have, for the most part, shied away from Just Because or Why Not. It has felt disingenuous to post random pics of affirmational street art or frothy ‘rangs of water features when inside I am Strugglebus, Passenger Zero. 

Until recently, the posts that absolutely did my head in, and for certain got a hefty eye roll, are the ‘Create’ mode single color screen with a sans serif “everyone’s ok but life is so hard I don’t want to get into it but like looking for brighter days watery eyes emoji” or a post-sob pic with an angsty emo quote and a cryptic “sigh.” Like not only am I judging you for wanting attention but also, JFC Kristy now I’m going to have to scroll back through literal years of your posts to try to figure out if your dog died and you got divorced or you just lost some Monat customers. Like WHAT IS IT. I need to know my level of investment. Is it that you couldn’t get the newest Stanley tumbler in the newest shade of tumbleweed jizz or did something truly terrible happen?

Because the truth is, that, sometimes, truly terrible things happen.

And the truth is, that, sometimes, we need to talk about them.

But we don’t know how. 

Because we are afraid if we start actually REALLY talking about them we will, right then and there, melt into a despondent puddle of post-New York City snowstorm corner slush and never be able to normally function ever again. Sharing — genuinely sharing — is tricky. On one hand, you don’t want to be a pity seeker and you don’t want people to feel bad for you bc ugh ew no thank you. But on the other hand, Please feel bad for me because I feel bad for myself and I want someone else to validate that so I can release the sneaking suspicion I am in fact just being a giant weenie. Bootstraps and all that. 

So what I’ve come to realize is that maybe I’m just a little jealous of Kristy’s Target parking lot sob-pic, because — if the feeling, the motivation is genuine — whether it’s attention seeking or not doesn’t really matter. It’s an attempt to connect. It’s an attempt to say: I am not ok and I need someone to ask me if I need anything because it’s too hard to even begin to tell you how I actually am right now.

The past 18 months have rocked me so deeply to my core of cores, have so thoroughly depleted me, lit me on fire, and reduced me to a shapeless pile of ash that doesn't know up from down that I don’t even know where to begin. 

Because where do I start? What am I going to tell you? That I quit my 18 year career as a teacher because I pretty much fucking hated teaching for 18 years? 

And then no one wanted to hire me because no one sees any value in teachers 

And then I got told on Christmas Eve morning that I didn’t get the job I had been a finalist for and really really wanted 

And then on Christmas Eve night found out my dad needed to go to the doctor because he had a suspicious spot at the base of his tongue

And then the day after Christmas our engine seized and car died on the Garden State Parkway

And then my first-responder dad was diagnosed with 9/11-related cancer

And then I got a new job

And then my now-husband was told to move to Delaware or be laid off and so he was laid off

And then my dad got sicker

And then I went to India and met my future in-laws for the first time

And then my husband got jostled down the subway stairs, knocked out his two front teeth and got a terrible concussion

And then my dad died

And then I broke the screen of my work computer

And then we got Covid

And then we got engaged

And then I was hospitalized for rhabdomyolysis 

And then my boss told me that I should probably lose 30 pounds for my wedding

And then I got a promotion

And then my promotion got rescinded by aforementioned misogynist piece of shit boss

And then we got civil married in a magical intimate ceremony by the water

And then my husband got a job

And then I got a new job far far away from aforementioned misogynist piece of shit boss

And then we got Hindu married in a epic week-long blowout in India with our amazing friends and family

And then we thought we could rest a little, catch our breaths a little bit, heal a little bit

And then my wonderful, hard-working husband got laid off. Again.

And then I felt like I was drowning

And then I thought I should probably write about all this shitastic fuckery because writing is my home

And I then I was like ha ok where (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHERE) do I even begin

And then I realized

It’s here.