Tag: friendship

The Break Up: Part 1

Published on by R4 Comments

This is part one of a (hopefully?) five part series I’ve written on my break-up with social media. I hope you enjoy it. I hope that if you don’t enjoy it, you can make up that lost time with something better in the future.

When I was young, I remember wondering if a song I hummed or a poem I had written had ever been hummed or written before. I made up little stories, wondering if I was the first girl to have thought up that plot line. As I grew up, and gained more opinions and on deeper topics. In high school and college, I wrote papers and had new and fresh thoughts, I felt that again, that feeling of “I wonder if I’m the first to state these opinions in this way!” Then I aged more still, and the internet grew into a place for all people to share all their thoughts— constantly. I would read a blog, I would view a post, I would watch a video, and two things happened:

  1. I began to feel there was nothing original. Nothing new under the sun. My friend and I who always made that weird face at each other across a crowded room? That wasn’t unique to us. The interesting thoughts I had on politics? Other people had them, too. The cute thing my toddler said that I thought was something special? Yeah, you guessed it, a ton of other toddlers did the same thing.  
  2. I began to think my own thoughts a little less often. If my thoughts are not unique and we are all in the same globalist mush pot, what does thinking your own thoughts matter? A slow boil of others’ viewpoints surrounded me until I had marinated in those thoughts so much, so long, and so often, that they became my own.

But, then things got worse.  Eventually, I came into to descend into the lowest level of mindless consumption the internet had to offer: short form video content. Though I never joined the platform that started it all, TikTok, I gladly ate up Reels and Shorts: The junk food of the internet. I could consume, and consume, glut and bloat on hundreds of videos where everyone was like me. I would sit in bed, next to my husband. He with his Instagram Reels and a headphone in, me with my Reels and an earbud, and I would occasionally emit a blast of air through my nose that couldn’t even be called a full laugh, hit “share,” and send it to his Instagram with 3 laugh crying emojis  and the message “omg this is totally us” and so we would volley back and forth, back and forth. Sitting in bed next to each other, in the dark, letting out horse snorts, laughing when things were “just like us”.

And when I got to that lowest level of Dante’s Internetferno, where I had effectively taught the algorithm to give me countless mirrors of my own marriage, politics, parenting, friends, and life, I realized it was true: I had far less of a unique life and far less original thoughts than I thought I did. My life was just like everyone else’s (except those people have bigger houses and nicer cars). There was no point in sharing what I thought with anyone, because we were all the same. I felt I had probably not had an original thought in a long time. My brain was monotony.

And so? I decided to revolt. I couldn’t shut the internet down, I couldn’t run around like a mad woman telling everyone else to do so, so I did what I could for me. I rebelled and cut myself off. I would no longer participate in the mindless funnel I had been spiraling down. I would replace that time spent in an endless scroll of videos with better things. And frankly? It’s not hard to find something better, because nearly anything legal (and some things illegal) would still be better than the mindless scroll to which I had become addicted. 

I deleted my social apps. I deleted the time sucking apps. I stepped away and was ready to be my own person! I was an adult! I could refuse to be a part of the newsfeed! How hard could it be?

It is embarrassing to recall how many times I unlocked my phone to search for Facebook or Instagram. My fingers were like blind kittens looking for their mother’s milk. I was looking for that sweet little blast of dopamine. I would search the neat little grids on my phone, and remember I had deleted the apps and there was nothing for me there.

To what could I turn that would be as easily satisfying and gratifying as a new notification of a like, a message, someone sending me another video that was “just like us”? Nothing. What meal is as easily prepared as it would be to open a bag of Doritos? What dessert can be made as easily as ripping open a package of M&Ms? I realized, I couldn’t replace those “just like me” moments with something of equal low effort. 

I was no longer able to watch the hour by hour updates of my friends. I comforted myself: At least I had the numbers of many of those friends! And I had kept messenger as a way to keep in touch with friends without being bogged down by the scroll. Social media is about being social, we can be social apart from that! These people liked me, I liked them. They could no longer see my daily life, nor I theirs, but that didn’t mean we would lose touch! With no memes or videos to send, I checked in with friends and had to say something more in depth than a laughing emoji and “this is so us”.

Have you ever moved away and had friends promise to keep in touch with you or visit you, and then years later, no one has made the trek and most of them forget about you? That’s what happened. I moved away from socials, and all the people whose kids I have watched grow up, the acquaintances whom I had liked and hearted everything from their first sourdough to their 3rd marathon, the people who dropped comments on things I posted and sent me latent likes? They just disappeared into the ether.

I was actually shocked. Oh, sweet, naive Rachel. I had felt that I had more to bond myself with these social media friends! I thought we were closer than we were, because we interacted every day. Reading each other’s thoughts, looking at each other’s pictures, and finding our “just like me” similarities. It turns out, when you move away from socials, you are out of sight, and therefore out of mind. I can’t tell you how many friends I texted or messaged to let them know I was thinking of them or to ask for a life update and got either nothing or something that shut down the ability or need for further dialogue in response. I’ll admit it. I’m a total nostalgic sap and I really love people, so it actually hurt at first. But then I realized: this, too, was good for me! I needed to be broken of the “my friend on Facebook” way of thinking. Not everyone on social media was my actual friend. We were placed in the same social media soup at the same time, and that murky broth was the only thing binding us in the same bowl. We really had nothing of substance between us, and I needed to get it through my clingy, little homeschool kid soul, that being in the same soup does not a friend make. It takes hard work, love, accountability, care, concern, conflict, aggravation, frustration, and reconciliation to build true bonds. I still think about these people. Some of them were friends from childhood, some my adolescent years, others from mom groups with whom I had become “close”. These were once in person friends and these were always internet friends, and once I was no longer playing by the rules of Millennial online over sharing? I no longer existed. My phone grew quieter still.

(Stay tuned next week(ish?) for part 2!)

From Macho to Mama

Published on by RLeave a comment

Disclaimer: This is a really different sort of entry for me to post publicly on the blog, and is more of a personal reflection than it is interesting for others, I’m sure. However, I’ve had some mild postpartum anxiety coupled with writer’s block (which started when my disability worsened near the end of my pregnancy), and this is the first thing I’ve felt compelled to write. So here is a little peek into my mind, heart, and life.

I’ve had 4 different friends send me this… they know me too well.

I was speaking with a male friend this week, and I shared that I had historically had more close male friends than close female friends, but since becoming a mother, I had gained more female than male friendships. After that thought was typed out, I stared at it and thought, “What happened to me? And where did all these female friends come from??” So I thought about it. And then I thought some more. And then I came to my answer…

A little history

Since I was a young child, I seemed to surround myself with male friends. As the youngest of 3 sisters, our all (but my dad) female household was an estrogen fest. Of course I loved playing with my sisters and I had dolls, but I always wanted a brother.

My mama has relayed a story to me about being at a church friend’s home for a party. I came out of the hallway with my pockets shoved so full of toy guns that my stonewashed jeans were falling down, when asked what I was doing with all the guns I said that the boys and I were playing war. Where ever Rachel was as a child, there was a small gang of boys surrounding her. I gave orders, and bossed them around, I organized and delegated play, and they went along with whatever rules I set.

Growing up homeschooled, my friends were from my church and homeschool group. It just so happened most of them were boys, and many of them had come into my life when we were toddlers and preschoolers. These were the boys who taught me to skateboard, jimmy candies out of coin operated candy machines, play war, and shoot hoops. These were the boys who I played with in the street til it was long after dark, these were the boys who were okay with me sitting on the boys side of the Sunday school classroom (which was not a rule. It was just how we always ended up!), the boys who didn’t seem to mind my wild and bossy ways. Until high school, I considered these boys to be my dearest friends. Of course I had wonderful girl friends in my cousins, and the occasional girl from church who didn’t have any other friends, but my preference was always to be close to brother figures.

This remained my trend, and in high school when many of the families belonging to my stand in brothers grew apart or moved, I was left alone. Alone in a sea of teenage girls who were prettier, smarter, thinner, and far more popular than I. Those girls had always been there, I had always been intimidated by them, and I had seldom understood them; but with the boys gone, I felt exposed.

Two things happened during this time. Firstly, I tried my hand at trying to fit in with other girls, and secondly, I was on the hunt for replacement brother figures. I didn’t like things the girls my age liked. Sure, I liked boy bands, but the Beatles had my heart more than N*sync ever could. I liked makeup, but I wore boys clothing often, and looked very tomboyish despite my long hair and body that developed quite early. I didn’t like or wasn’t allowed to watch most chick flicks and opted for war and action movies. I was obsessed with muscle cars and would rather go to a car show with my old man than go to the mall with a bunch of girls. Some girls I got along with okay, but it was more a mutual existence than friendship. I couldn’t get deep with the girls I knew, and I can’t pin this all on them, because as much as I could play the poor me card, I just didn’t like being with most girls. I found them boring, tedious, shallow, and uninteresting. I found them untrustworthy and petty, and like there was a never ending, silent competition for who was better, prettier, smarter, and more cunning.

Mercifully, during this stage I ended up finding a few other girls who liked the Beatles and Disneyland as much as I did, and was able to gain some solid female friends, some of whom I consider to be very good friends to this day. But still, I was looking for brothers— And brothers I eventually found.

These brothers were different. They weren’t my childhood church friends, these were guys a few years older than I was. These were guys who took me shooting, who taught me to smoke Swisher Sweets on park picnic benches, and who I played practical jokes with in the home improvement store we worked in. These were the guys who taught me to defend myself in a fist fight, who put up with my growing temper, and didn’t get offended when I was sarcastic. These were the guys who taught me an appreciation for violent movies, wild driving, and how to properly use a knife. Let’s just say they were a little more rough around the edges, and my gosh I loved it. I loved every manly, macho, chauvinistic second of it, because they offered me a sense of protection. Once again, I found that though they taught me to be tougher and wilder than ever, I was able to tell them what to do, and they did. Sure, on Saturday nights they were all together wasted at bars I was too young to go to, but if I demanded their heathenous rumps visit my church the next morning, they feigned complaint and showed up anyway. I criticized their girlfriends, and they usually just laughed it off. I was probably incredibly annoying, but they kept me around– and obeyed me, something other gals never did.

Then a whole lot of really dramatic stuff goes in here, and add a few more close female friends (several of whom confirmed my fear of them with their back stabbing and emotional thrashings), and then add some more male friends (most of the United States Marine Corps variety), and more and more dramatic events, and then we get to marriage. (Sorry, this is getting tedious, I swear we are nearing a point… eventually.)

The tipping point

Of course, once I was a newlywed, MOST of my friendships dwindled away. They were largely single, I was mostly twitterpated, and I was left with a few solid and wonderful friends. I got pregnant a hot minute after we were married, and I was lonely. Yes, I had my sweet Milkman, but my single girlfriends were off going to bars, coffee, concerts, and lumberjack festivals (someone’s gonna stab me for mentioning these), and I missed the banter and snark that I had enjoyed so much with my guy friends. So like all good pregnant women do, I went to the Internet in search of OTHER pregnant people, and I found them— by the droves. Consequently, they were all women. I was in uncharted waters. I joined so many mom groups, that my life was completely surrounded by women. And then I started this blog, knowing 99% of my audience (if I ever got one) would be other women. And then I became close to these women, and I let them in my life, and each pregnancy, I added more women to my life. And this blog grew and had even more women in my life.

Some of these women shredded me to pieces, but some of these women became close. And these women? They taught me how to cloth diaper, how to breastfeed, how to babywear, and what baby led weaning was. They taught me how to find the right meme for any conversation, how to survive on zero sleep, and how to be okay with eating chocolate in my closet while hiding from my kids. They taught me to be terrified of secondary drowning, what to do in case of a pea getting stuck in my toddler’s nose, and when to call the doctor for a fever. They taught me that some women are still cutthroat no matter their age or status in life, that it’s okay to cut yourself loose from the pack, and they taught me that being hurt deeply by other women isn’t a reason to swear them off for eternity. They taught me to love the children of strangers, how to file fostering paperwork, and how to say goodbye. They taught me how to trust other women, that it isn’t always a competition, and that some conversations are just better between women. They taught me how to make junk food when pregnant, how to give up sugar, and how to make a whole plate of brownies 9 days after giving up sugar because I was stressed. They taught me how to balance my sarcasm, how to be winsome in settling disagreements, and how to approach hot topics without being a jerk. They taught me love, friendship, and the value of having friends in other time zones.

And I wasn’t lonely anymore. And I wasn’t as insecure anymore. And I wasn’t as tough anymore. I began to soften.

So I sit here, 7 years after joining my first birth group and wondering how I found myself tightly knit to small groups of women across the Internet, and think: wait. When did I stop disliking other women so much? I had spent my whole life before motherhood scared of women, avoiding them as much as I could, and even (foolishly) priding myself in how much I didn’t need them. And yet, I find myself not just tolerating them, but loving them. The ones I’m close with and talk with daily, the ones whose familiar names and profile pictures pop up commenting on the blog, the ones whose little ones I see growing up on Instagram, the in person friends I have who are mothers now, or soon to be mothers, and all the ones in between, and I realized, sure I was always intimidated by other girls and women, but these aren’t just women.

These are nurturers, life givers, advocates, warriors, survivors, booboo kissers, macaroni n cheese slingers, kale smoothie blenders, healers, comforters, researchers, counselors, and go getters.

I don’t have to watch chick flicks, paint my nails, go shopping, look perfect, or be smart for these women to connect with me, because we have one of the highest callings on earth in common:

To be called “Mother”.