About three years ago, I experienced some jarring things related to social media. What you need to know right now is that I am someone who used to really, really like it.

I was never ashamed about my involvement with, for example, Facebook or Instagram. I enjoyed it, my nest was empty and therefore no small children were neglected, and I had the luxury of having already raised a family, sans social media. So I dove right in to all of it, feeling like it was the best thing since…well, blogging.

I could not have been more wrong.

I would have told you that the friends I’d made on social media were real. I would have told you that, because I believed it.

Until I didn’t.

Until said “jarring events” of a few short years ago.

Turns out, it is easy for some people to “cancel” another human being, whose face they do not see on the regular. Have you ever been “cancelled”? I bet it was social media related! I have also seen people’s “IRL” (“in real life”) and even family relationships deeply and negatively impacted by things said in silly squares.

I’m not blaming social media, per se. My squares ARE me, just as your squares (if you participate) ARE you. If I am honest, my squares are honest. If I am loving, my interactions in my squares are friendly. If I am a follower of Jesus, things on my social media will reflect that.

So is it social media, or is it the individual?

It is, one hundred percent, the individual. Unless a robot posts or ghosts on your behalf, your social media presence is a direct reflection of what you actually value - even if you are faking things, that means you value something so much you will fake things.

See what I’m getting at?

It is, for me, the lost hours spent nurturing, as best as I could, social media “friendships” that turned out not to be friendships at all.

I do not get that time back, to spend with my elderly lady friend who I take to the grocery store weekly. I don’t get to recoup a single minute, and instead invest it in my next door neighbor.

Lesson learned.

Turns out, I am by far not the only one. Author Heather Cadenhead has written a vulnerable, moving piece over in The Rabbit Room. It nearly brought me to tears today.

And guess where she’s writing, now, too?

You got it. Substack.

It’s a Revolution.

It’s official: all the Poets And Real People (who can never be ugly) have long since left the FB/IG/ETC building. Including me. I’ve left the building, even though I’m still there.

What do I mean by that?

My best thoughts haven’t landed on an Instagram post for years. I use Instagram like The Preacher uses a wrench: for a specific reason, to get a specific job done.

Making friends isn’t what that tool does. It can make colleagues and associates, and I am so so fine with that, because those can be beautiful in their own way. And because my real life is so full of gorgeous friendships, I will never again let a social media “relationship” siphon off my energies.

Now. I will still tell you, over there on th’ Gram, “I am here for the friendships. Full stop.” That’s because a few of my actual friends run their businesses there, and we stick together. We share one another’s offerings, and we love on each other so beautifully, with zero weirdness. We are more than beauty chasers, we are beauty practitioners, and the things they share are worthy, worthy things. You better believe, I am there for them.

Well, The Preacher just walked in the door. Time to shut down the technology and go do some embodied lovin’ and some IRL butt-whoopin’ in Yahtzee. (I first used the alternative to “donkey”, and changed it to “butt” for the benefit of those who are ultra sensitive to spicy words and spicy foods. Now, if “butt” just offended you…we are probably colleagues. In that case, I’m so sorry.)