Almost three years ago, I scrubbed my social media overnight. Just about every Instagram post: gone. From 710 posts to 6. Seven years of the publicly accessible photographic record or me. The blog stayed live but stagnated as I continued a burn out spiral and fell in love.
Unarchiving everything is a special kind of monotony. It took ages.
All the posts are back now.
There was a long (2,055 word) essay I’d been working on with zero enthusiasm. This is not that. To be fair, I haven’t really been writing anything let alone writing anything with one enthusiasm. So, I scrapped that because it was boring. I’ll summarize in 35 words: I have reasons for scrubbing social media; I don’t regret it. I truly think having it inaccessible for a long time is a big part of why my life is what it is.
Nothing has made me more nostalgic or homesick than moving across the world. Grief is a bitch, and it hasn’t eased with time. I desperately miss the full, beautiful life I left behind in Houston. I miss the city itself. Don’t ever let anyone tell you the place doesn’t matter. The place matters. Houston felt like home because the culture and I fit. Mostly, I miss the people. I miss my people so fucking much. Houston became home because of the friends who became family. It’s already different. People have moved away. Children have been born. Partners have been found. Since August 2023, so many things have changed, including but not limited to the 8,986 miles I put between us; even so, I have not lost my people. They’re still here and amazing.
A phrase has recently been haunting me, “A photo deleted is a memory forgotten.” Thank goodness I didn’t delete my Instagram posts, but I didn’t make them accessible either. I don’t want to forget. I want to remember everything. Sleep is not a consistent friend, and I have found myself scrolling the archives many nights since moving to Australia.
Life changes so fast. It doesn’t necessarily feel like it at the time, but it does. I have had these incredible eras of life, and some are really extreme. Like: having six dogs or coming out as a lesbian at 30 or moving to Australia with dogs. My life is ever changing. And that’s just since COVID. The side quests become main quests, and I genuinely have no idea how to make a five year plan because my future is so unknowable.
Sometimes, I like to look back and remember the life I used to live. The one that led the way to here because it’s easy to forget how much change has swept through my life in 35 years. Even the last three years! What🙺 Early August 2023, I was excited about being single forever, buying a house, and going to Cambodia/Australia. Now, I live in Australia. Could not have seen that one coming because I met my fiancée on that trip. Crazy.
On late nights, when I’m daydreaming about my people going about their lives in the daylight while I lie in bed at nighttime, I look through my photos and archived posts. What a time. There is such an evolution of style, self, and circumstance. It’s less of a scroll and more of remembering every story around every photograph. A remembering of who I was and wanted and feared and loved. It encapsulates so many eras of me over the last ten years. I see beauty standards I no longer prescribe to. I see versions of myself that never really existed and ones that should have been avoided and ones with secrets and ones I wholly believed in. I see a life I loved and all the stories that went unwritten but not forgotten. I see someone trying. Really fucking hard.
When I archived every post, I knew in my core I was starting a new chapter. Mostly because it was time. I had outgrown what was and needed to find or create the next bit. And I did. In the most unexpected way. I’m 35. The new chapter is fully in swing. I’m now figuring out how to fit in it. Everything changed so fast, I haven’t quite caught up yet. I think the part I’ve been missing is my whole self. As I figure out what life is in a foreign country, I also have to not forget all the parts of me, all my stories. Even if that’s just for me in my head. So, I’ve been looking back through my Instagram and my blog, which has existed for almost a decade. As much as I have loved all the perks of blogging, the part I now love most is how much of an archive it has become. From who I thought I was as a writer to the trips I’ve taken, the books I’ve read, dog mom problems, recipes. It’s all there. Essays and photos. A time capsule and treasure trove. I don’t have many photos from before the age of 25, and all the memories that don’t include photos feel like stories I made up, but that’s on abuse and memory. It results in feeling like a real human with a believable past when I have photos to document. Photos make me feel less crazy.
When I started this, my fear was I would look through it with disappointment someday. Part of me does because I have not accomplished much of what I thought and hoped to, but no. I’m not disappointed. Maybe a little amused as to how I thought I was really nailing some things I was really not nailing. Mostly:
Damn, I’ve had fun!
So everything is back up on my Instagram. Let’s be honest, I’m not doing it for anyone other than me. No one will ever think about my life as much as I will and do. Instagram is the highlight reel of a really cool life. There’s enough bad stuff in my history, and it’s nice to have lived long enough to have this highlight reel.
I managed to make my point in 1,041 words which is 1,014 less words than the original.
You’re welcome.
