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二日九月

Here is the question: do I understand and commit to the complicated fulfillment of sharing my life with others, or don’t I?

First raised last night, with dangerous casualty, in conversation with mum. I express the anxiety of communicating my whereabouts to loved ones from afar. She asks me why, and I answer searchingly and honestly. From the ensuing conversation in which she expresses her frustration at the apparent lack of respect tied up in my attitude – for the autonomy my family has lovingly offered me – and I attempt to better articulate the reasons for which I prefer to not communicate long-distance, it comes up as a potential solution to make intentional time to utilize technology in order to maintain respectful and reciprocal relationships with loved ones.

The same goes for blogging. I expressed to Daniel on the phone tonight that I had anticipated that by pulling away from social media I would become a more interesting or desirable object of communication—that is, more people would reach out to me for better reason, and I was ultimately detrimental to my ripening ego to foster an idealized internet persona. The actual result is that I feel less sought out, more left out, and unexpectedly and unacceptably lonely. So the question reemerges: am I willing to give myself a little, at the expense of a fraction of my control?