(dis)connected

A couple of years ago I decided to curate my Instagram feed. That’s what they call it – curating . As thought it were a collection of ancient and priceless paintings gathering dust in a museum somewhere rather than a group of ashwagandha-pushing influencers and people I used to go to high school with.

It was part of a larger effort to reconstruct my life, or at least my happiness. Or at least the part of me that felt decidedly unhappy. I didn’t expect it to solve every problem, but I figured a few less strangers making me feel like garbage – too big, too boring, not grateful or glow-y enough – couldn’t be a bad thing.

(I guess another route to happiness would have been to cancel Instagram all together, but try as I might I can’t seem to do it. Well, I can do it, I just can’t stick with it. I’ve inactivated my account more than once, only to get uncomfortably itchy for it a few weeks later. I’ve given up Amazon and even alcohol without looking back. But Instagram has its claws in me.)

So I curated it instead. I got rid of hardcore news, gossip, wine memes and all things unnaturally perfect, and in their place added feel-good stories, nourishing recipes, picturesque views, poets and strangers who show me their cellulite and tell me that I’m enough exactly as I am.

And it’s worked, kind of. I feel better about it these days than I used to. But it’s still odd.

I’m in my forties, which means I’m old enough to very clearly remember a life before social media, but not so old that I roll my eyes at it and say things like, “In my day, we used to play marbles on the sidewalk.”

I get it, I use it, I like it. But I sometimes wish it didn’t exist. Not just for me, but for any of us. I wish we didn’t have to look for tokens of acceptance and self-worth on the internet. I wish I didn’t need filtered photos of other people’s stretch marks to make me feel better about my own.

My kids were born into and are fully immersed in this new world, and honestly they seem to have a better handle on it. Maybe not knowing a life before Instagram makes it all a little less shiny, a little less alluring. I hope so.

With love. xo