Photo Credit: Thomas BRAULT via Unsplash
Until today, I didn’t speak to anyone from there for 6 months.
Aside from my sister, who technically doesn’t even live in Los Angeles.
I kept the numbers the same. Every morning I turned on Skype and signed into iChat. Some mornings I’d slouch back in my work chair, an exhibition of lackadaisical involvement that only millennials can pull off with such fluidity. Idly scrolling through my buddy list, I’d catch the familiar names of “buddies” from seemingly so long ago.
During these six months, I exchanged countless texts and digital notes of whimsy. They came in the form of sentiment-addled comments on Instagram or quick little ditties over Facebook. Some were private but most were public. They were ways to let people know that I hadn’t dropped off the face of the Earth completely. Not that anyone was watching.
We don’t write letters anymore. I’m not sure I even have the sufficient motor skills necessary to craft a legible missive by hand. Even for those who are scientifically wired to be stronger communicators that way, crafting a long letter has been superseded by convenience. Immediacy wins.
We don’t even pick up a phone and call.
What’s a phone call even worth today? According to Verizon, access can run anywhere from forty to over one-hundred dollars a month. I suppose what we’re really paying for is everything else. The text messaging, data access. The tools providing the ability to “share things” and disclose to distant acquaintances that I am indeed alive, and of someplace relevant, somewhere in this world.
Over the course of these six months, I allowed the disconnect to happen with a certain measure of chagrin. It’s a fight to resist what comes more naturally – and so I succumbed to my data plan rather than digging up any fancy pen and paper. I kept my voice quiet and typing fingers nimble, forming little messages crafted in the reflection of myself.
It isn’t a social disorder that motivated me to communicate at arms length (I don’t think so, at least, unless thinking about it might suggest a disorder in itself) as much as it was the need for some space. A deep desire for the time and space to reposition myself. A bit of a reinvention. A change of pace, and a new state of mind.
Now, for the parts you don’t know about.
I lost my job last month. I’ve been going out WAY too much and not getting enough exercise. I’ve been going on depressing interviews and taking “upbeat” meetings everyday, to the point where I now feel like my head is screwed on sideways. I should probably find a dentist. I once stole a lady’s seat on the subway. I have absolutely zero desire to eat a cronut.
How else, other than within the context of this story, would you ever know those random things? That all happened, too.
There are also larger thought bubbles that formed overhead – complex storm clouds murmuring over the present lack of clarity. Sleepless nights worrying about an uncertain future. The urge for rice-less salmon rolls at midnight, or goddammit, where the hell is that beeping sound coming from?
I’d rather believe that life experiences chalk up to something more like that. It might be mundane – and may not be formatted prettily for Instagram – but it is the stuff that’s real.
I don’t have any regrets about my last few years in LA. I know this because rather than opting to run so fast and far from it all as I thought I was doing at first, I now look back on it all with achy remembrance. I now realize that in those circumstances what we’re usually running from is something greater. And it usually doesn’t involve any circumstance.
Besides, the achy stuff makes it count.
Our data plans won’t facilitate, nor document it. It’s not even sexy – no one wants to check-in at CVS on Foursquare. It’s the inner workings of a life that isn’t exactly presentable to the world in a self-preserved and dutifully vetted package.
In the future, will anyone even care about the truth, or simply go by the reflection of our truth as it’s presented to the world? For the kids coming up under us, how are they going to learn anything about being alive?
We’re all here, online in that digital world in whatever form of truth we choose to put forward. That’s how people know we’re ok.
They say to not look back. Never look back.
And still, I do.
During those six months, time stood still. Not much changed. It was a huge risk because there’s no guarantee that this is the rule – a single moment can change everything. This is why we need to write letters and make more phone calls. We’re all in it together, collectively sharing the joyful ache of being alive.