Expect chaos. Embrace chaos. –Lauren Kate, Passion

Yesterday I met an amazing man.

I had woken up too late for work, had packed a meager lunch that definitely wouldn’t satiate two adults and a toddler because I had run out of time. I wasn’t able to style my hair the way I liked it and had forgone any eye makeup. Luckily for me, I’ve got big emerald eyes and naturally curly lashes so it wasn’t a crisis. My husband and I had raced through the Sunday morning traffic on the way to our part time job, growing increasingly more annoyed by all the people exiting crowded church services.

They need police escorts for this…? I thought bitterly to myself.

He reminded me a lot of my maternal grandfather, with his Midwestern, homespun wisdom and his amazing ability to build basically anything while still being super modest about it. He looked to be about eighty or older, although one can never really tell these things just by looking, right? He was sharp and witty, kind and warm, and ecstatic to show me around the historical house that he was busy restoring.

He had this incredible way with craftsmanship and old, weathered wood pieces. He showed me a bunch of cabinets and built-ins that he had made with various products he had found in different places throughout his life. “These were from an old window from a farmhouse in Newark, Ohio,” he told me as he pointed to the custom made hutch cabinet he had made for his late wife, whose name I believe was Gloria. “Unfortunately they didn’t fit the frames for this window,” he pointed towards the historic stained-glass windows in the kitchenette, “so my wife asked me to make her a hutch,” he shrugged.

I was so moved by everything I had seen in his carefully crafted and maintained home that I excitedly burst out, “Would it be okay if you gave my husband a tour?!” The elderly man, who later introduced himself to me as “David”, looked at me with big blue eyes and stared at me, almost like he was shocked. “Of course,” he responded back after an awkward few seconds, “bring him on in.”

I can’t help but wonder if he was stunned by how impressed I was. Like maybe given his age and borderline shut-in status, perhaps other individuals had taken him, and his talent, for granted. In a world where we’re surrounded by smart phones and Instagram filters to hide who we truly are, maybe his amazing gift for restoration went unnoticed.

But as I stood in his warm, well worn house, surrounded by exquisite crown molding and carefully pieced together repurposed barn wood floors, I couldn’t really fathom any other reaction.

With my feet on the dash, the world doesn’t matter. –Death Cab for Cutie, Passenger Seat

I started to realize that maybe I was doing things wrong.

I started to realize that maybe I was spending all my time doing all these things that quite frankly, I don’t really care about. It finally hit me that maybe I was one of those people creating a false façade, a plastic life to go along with my endless list of meaningless electronics. And it hit me like a two ton truck that I didn’t want to be one of those people living through computers.

I didn’t want to be an avid Facebooker or social media surfer who lacks any sort of general social skills. I didn’t want to rely on technology like geo tags and text messages to get through life. I was sick of Snapchat stories and Facebook updates, I was exhausted with master posers and cute filters. I was just done with it.

None of it is real. And that really annoys me.

To be honest, I hate what we’ve become. I guess I have respect for people who make their millions being what has been termed “an influencer” but if I’m honest, I can’t really comprehend how that’s a job. I mean, social media famous? That doesn’t seem like something I’m really hoping for; it doesn’t seem like a genuine career path to me.

But this generation, this group of overemotional millennials just exhausts me. And I hate that I’m technically grouped into that category because of my birthday. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all these other pretty much useless social media outlets give me so much anxiety that I haven’t been on myself in days. For awhile I was “getting paid” to promote for a company that I had a lot of faith in but the idea of being forced to spend all of my time checking notifications and taking pictures that I really didn’t feel good about just bugged me. I still stand behind the company and think their products are pretty great, but I can’t be a Facebook groupie. It’s just not me.

I’m more of a here’s-a-photo-of-my-espresso-that-I-desperately-need brand of gal. I live in a fantasy world where Lucy and Ricky Ricardo hide in their living room closet and celebrate their “sentimental anniversary” via candlelight.

I guess I just don’t care anymore. Or maybe it’s not that I don’t care; it’s that I can’t stand to be someone I’m not anymore. I can’t stand to live my life on social media anymore. I can’t stand to not post this because this person might see and tell this person. I can’t stand to only want to post pictures so that people can see I’m fine. I can’t stand the drama and I can’t stand the disquiet of it all.

The notifications, the judgment, the comments, the why didn’t you send me this picture instead of posting it on Facebook for the world to see? I’m done with it. I’ve got better things to do.

And honestly? The way my life has been going lately? Soon I won’t even have a phone to even think about posting on social media because my ALMOST TWO YEAR OLD KEEPS THROWING IT.

… but I digress.

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. –Edgar Allan Poe

An old girlfriend of mine who suffers from pretty severe depression and anxiety told me that she just couldn’t fathom social media anymore. She said she just couldn’t log on, couldn’t be bothered to see what everyone else was up to because it just made her feel worse. And you know what? I can’t even lie; I really identify with that.

One of my best friends told me that she just doesn’t like all the competition of social media. She explained to me that being in the modeling and fashion industry had shown her all the behind the scenes realities of these alleged Instagram models and pinups and she just couldn’t get behind it anymore. She told me she even stopped following someone on Instagram who alleged she was super into fitness and workouts because she learned she had had tons of augmentations and other plastic surgery type work done. And the more I got into this discussion with her, the more I realized: we aren’t real anymore. I mean, who are we really?

Are we the people we claim to be on Facebook or are we literally ten percent of that? Just little glimpses of who we wish we were? Are we just using other people’s successes, songs, and artwork to express ourselves? Suddenly, with this new line of thinking, I just wanted no part of it anymore.

Moral of the Crazy: I just want to be real. I want to read Edgar Allan Poe and Jane Austen. I want to sleep away my days in a cabin with Coltrane playing on an old record player. I want my daughter to live her life in the sunshine; not spend so much time trying to photograph it correctly for a certain number of likes that she loses sight of its beauty. I want to hear the birds from my front porch and feel the sun tickle my freckled cheeks. And most of all, I want to stop worrying about what other people are thinking of me. Which quite honestly, seems impossible when you’re on social media.

Let me tell you something: anyone who says, “It’s my Facebook, I post what I want,” is full of absolute shit. People post things and share offensive memes to get a reaction. People post provocative photos of themselves in bikinis or lingerie, flexing their little baby yoga abs, because they want a reaction. And there’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose. Everyone is entitled to whatever it is they want.

But I guess I just want so much more than that.

A friend of mine who I’ve lost touch with over the years recently got married in Italy (or thereabouts, I can’t quite recall at this moment). I remember thinking for a brief moment, in my own selfishness, How dare they do that destination wedding bullshit? Who can afford a flight to Italy, am I right? And then more recently, How rude, they didn’t even post any pictures for the rest of us to see!

But you know what? I think he was onto something there.

The more I thought about, I realized, their wedding wasn’t about everyone else, it was about them. They probably took some pictures (I did see one super cute one…), yes, but why would they have to share them? Why not keep the moment private and romantic? And maybe the idea of a destination wedding appealed to them because it made it that much more special. A handful of people in a really romantic ceremony? It was what I really wanted but my strict Italian parents wouldn’t allow it…

In this world of it didn’t happen if it didn’t happen on Facebook just disgusts me and part of me wishes I could redo my wedding all over again so I could have some super private, intimate ceremony in an Irish castle in a long, black lacy dress. Because who cares what everyone else wants/thinks/expects?

Am I making sense or rambling?

I’ve always been kind of an old soul but since having my daughter, I’ve really changed my outlook on things. I know people always say that but it’s such a real thing. There are some things that I may have overlooked before, some things I may have turned a blind eye to in the past and now, I think I’ve become a bit more rigid.

There are just some things that I cannot accept anymore. And I kind of don’t care if it makes me look antisocial; I don’t care if it makes people worry about me. Maybe instead of worrying they should stop prowling my Facebook and send me a text message…?

I don’t want to be a social media mogul. I don’t want to take a picture with the intent to post on social media and then feel bad about it because the truth is, I’ll never measure up to those girls I used to follow. I don’t want my last words to be the ones someone saw in a recent Facebook status. I don’t want my world to be observed via check-ins and unrealistic filters.

I want to be genuine. I want to be authentic. And most importantly, I want to be myself.

Maybe I was always meant to meet David. I’ve always had sort of an internal struggle going on in my soul. I struggle because I’m extremely sensitive and for whatever stupid reason, I’ve been criticized for it. I struggle because I’m an eternal wanderer, a person that doesn’t seem to be ever truly satisfied. I struggle because I’m an old soul trapped in this godforsaken millennial body and I can’t figure out why our generation is so warped. I struggle because ever since having my daughter, I feel like I’m losing a little bit of myself that I’m trying desperately to cling to.

Meeting David taught be that some things are ageless, that certain things know no time. It also taught me that age is nothing but a number and that losing people, while painful, can also strengthen your resolve. It taught me that sometimes, there are going to be people that just don’t understand you. And you know what? That’s okay.

It also taught me that while I’m over here trying to figure myself out, struggling with this deep, soulful internal struggle, maybe I’m not the only one. I just want to find my niche and make it my own.

Despite what’s popular and trending. Despite what sells.

A wish that she hardly dared to own,

For something better than she had known.

-John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller