Getaway: The Reclaim
I deleted all my social media.
Such a strange world we’re living in; being so connected &, yet, feeling so disconnected. I never much cared for the number on my followers list but it’s an interesting sort of puppet show we’re all putting on. I kept feeling this sense of inauthenticity. I wasn’t pretending to be anyone but myself, and I wrote with raw, humbling truth as much as I could, but who really cares? 1 like, 10 likes, 30, 50 more….what’s the point? There we are, logging in and we might be seeing different things but we’re all on the same channel. We’re all watching each others shows, mindlessly liking, commenting fire emoji’s for people that don’t know you. & it’s not that they’re bad. We’re just people and we have the capacity to maintain 150 relationships, according to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar.
So there I was, thousands of “friends” in, but craving instead for deep, true connection.
I’ve always been the social butterfly, life-of-the-party type person. I didn’t need to drink to have the people around me roaring with laughter. But as life moved on, so did everyone else, and I became accustomed to this sort of pilgrimage people took through my life. Of course, this is normal. We grow in a hundred different ways &, inevitably, people grow apart. But, my mind began to see folks as seasons. “I wonder how long she & I will be friends…”, I thought, then relegated to enjoying the friendship until, at last, she was an acquaintance whose pictures would pop up on my feed. double tap.
I’ve been making so many moves in my life as of late. Honestly, I threw myself into the great healing work and work and training following a hard breakup. I call that portion of my life: The Great Avoiding. Avoiding is exhausting, I’ll add. 4/10, do not recommend. 4 points for how much fitter I got.
Monday, I started moving into my new apartment. I had just bought my truck not 2 weeks prior and I was feeling pretty proud of myself, until my daughter - in her teenage ignorance - reminded me that these fruits of my labor, my tears, sweat…it wasn’t good enough. Okay. She didn’t say that. But she may as well because I proceeded to cry in my truck for half an hour. No one double taps on that type of shit. Oh, I’d get the messages, privately, thanking me for being so honest, so open about everything, but we’re all mostly still hiding behind the filtered truth.
We’re just pixelated images coming undone when no one is around.
Yesterday morning, I woke up with a list of Judy-do’s. No “hunny” to delegate to or be a team with, the list is mine alone. I walked into my Summer Moon Coffee, now within walking distance, ordered my usual - a large, hot, whisper moon - and opened up my laptop. I hadn’t planned to but I immediately set out to book a Getaway cabin in Wimberley for that day.
So what’s this reclaiming?
It’s the little things: back in my apartment, I reclaim my space. In my own truck that no one paid for but me, I reclaimedx2 my financial independence. Back in my accounts, I reclaimed my financial sagacity. In my relationships, I reclaim authenticity. And in this small act of booking my 5th Getaway (3rd in Wimberley), I reclaimed my sanity.
But something else happened.
Something more.
On my evening walk, as my shoes crunched the white pebbles, I began to see - once more - the art around me. The way the tree bark contrasted the fading purple of a flower, or the way the pampas grass shot itself gently towards the blue of the sky. I’m not sure how long I walked but the sun was about to set as I made my way towards my cabin.
I’d reclaimed life as art.
I felt something I hadn’t been able to feel in a long time:
Connected.
