Every year I go through what I like to call my annual existential crisis. It seems to roughly correspond to Great Lent, which seems to be a holdover from my days as a Roman Catholic or an Orthodox Christian. It's a time when I look at where I am, inside and out, and start massive changes.
Perhaps, in some ways, it's more like New Year than Lent, because some of those changes seem to last about as long as a typical New Year's resolution. The one change I always make that falls into this category is my social media use.
Every year around this time I mass delete my Facebook page. This year I had to find a new extension to do that. Hopefully it's running in the background at this point, and when I go back to FB, everything will be gone.
There have been a number of studies about social media and the effects of social media. It's been hard, having moved during the pandemic, and being an introvert anyway. I don't have many connections that are really close, and since my daughter died in September, that feeling of being so cut off and alone has become very acute. Sitting in the FB echo chamber has done nothing to help that.
I'll likely cut my friends list as well, because a lot of people I have in my small list are people I don't interact with at all anyway, and some are people I interact with more offline.
I've already Kon-maried my apartment in preparation for the move, and while that helped in some ways, the move itself, having everything in boxes, no pictures on the walls, no rug on the floor, has made the feeling of isolation and emptiness worse. I need for the move to be over.
This year's changes have a different feel from previous years. Although I feel sad and empty, I also feel a sense of peacefulness and acceptance with some of this. There is too much that is out of my hands, and things I can finally let go of because I have had to come to the realization that I can't control all aspects of my life, and that the things I can control (and the at times negative consequences, like my knee injury) are things I've chosen, risks I've taken, and if I'm not prepared to live with the consequences, well, it's too friggin' late now.
I think this song by FILK band Ookla the Mok is pretty much my anthem for this year. It only took me 62 years to get to this point. I'm gonna be alright.
I the sense of surrender is what makes it different this year. Usually this time of year feels like a battle. Now it feels like I'm sliding (albeit uncomfortably) into the future I need to embrace. Part of this is going to be accepting vulnerability, and seeking out friendships rather than always being teacher, leader, support system, and/or mother figure.
And I've already learned that it's OK for me to cry. I expect I'll be doing some more of that in the days to come.
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