Let’s pretend we’re rocking on a beautiful Southern porch somewhere. Sink into your rocker, grab your beverage of choice, and let me tell you a story.
I used to love a good blog post, Facebook rant, or Instagram picture.
Back then, if you’d asked me why I posted, I would’ve told you I wanted to “help others feel less alone.”
Today, I’ll tell you the truth: I was desperate.
Desperate. I hate that word. It conjures up memories of feeling less than, a lower-middle-class child from NOLA, relocated against my will to my parents’ home state of Mississippi for my father’s job. My family didn’t fit in with the suburbanites in our new town. We barely fit in with each other, and eventually we fell apart and scattered.
For years, I practiced turning childhood pain into prose, keeping journals since the third grade.
By my twenties, I knew for sure I’d never let go of writing.
I pored over my favorite magazines and books but never had the guts to submit a single piece. Although I attempted a few projects on my own, that childhood feeling of never being enough, of never belonging, left me terrified of criticism and rejection.
Around that time, I noticed many Southern mothers chronicling their lives on “blogspots.” Using their last names to create cute blog titles, such as “Jonesing for the Joneses” or “Living with the Livingstons,” they would share mom hacks, clothing finds, Crock-pot recipes, and the occasional Bible verse or culture take, alongside pictures of little Tommy smiling on the front porch in his alligator john-john.
Eager to jump on board, I started a blog and used it to navigate the restlessness that had arrived unexpectedly in my thirties. Moving to a new town with my husband and our family became an albatross around my neck, not the saving grace I had hoped. Raising children as a young mom was hard–even harder without my own mother in my life.
Posts detailing my disillusionment with marriage and faith, how tired I was of scrolling past beautiful, perfect women with beautiful, perfect families and beautiful, perfect homes, took off on social media, which I’d both hoped for and dreaded. I’ve since learned this fear of exposure is common for creatives. Sharing a tangible piece of your intangible identity feels like cutting off a limb, knowing at least one person somewhere will rip it to shreds, if only for kicks and grins. With so much distance and anonymity online, the odds are disgustingly high.
The more I wrote and shared, the more I wanted people to read it, and the more I despised it.
Posting felt fruitless–unlike similar mommy bloggers, I wasn’t making a dime off my writing. It also felt aimless, as if I were seeking nothing more than the click of the like button. I took much-needed breaks, but my desperate desire to be seen and heard would inevitably claw its way up my backbone, through my fingertips, and back onto the keyboard.
Post, I’d click. (Pointless, I’d think.)
Amid the dissatisfaction of an unsuccessful writing “career,” a tragedy involving a few prominent citizens struck my small Southern town. Truly, tragedy is an understatement. It was the kind of event that brought you to your knees and made you wonder why you were left behind, but they were taken. No amount of life experience enables you to explain the purpose of that depth of suffering to a child. It will never make sense to the innocent. It shouldn’t make sense to any of us.
To heal the only way I knew how, I went to my blog and offered prayers to the family. I wrote about God’s Mysterious Will, and Jesus weeping, and all the Christianese we Southerners use whenever our faith betrays us. I ended my post with our city’s name and #strong, the familiar tag making the rounds online that showed outsiders who we were. Who we knew.
Because the tragedy was horribly fresh, my blog post spread like wildfire in our region–and a gnawing pang of guilt spread throughout my conscience. The post itself wasn’t bad. There was no trace of hurt or anger. But I knew that my motive for writing hadn’t been totally pure. Blinded by frustration and fear, I had ignored the angels of my better nature. One day, the children left behind might open their computers and discover my words out there in the internet abyss. I couldn’t stand the thought, so I deleted the post, then my blog, returned to teaching full time, and gave up on the dream of becoming a published writer.
I’m glad I did. Today I believe next to nothing I believed back then, except that creating a blog post no one asked me to write about a tragedy that didn’t involve me was wrong. The customs that social media blurs have caused many of us to forget that mourning has hierarchies, just as society does, and that’s simply the way life is.
Social media has its benefits, but the old-school way of discovering and discussing something privately and respectfully is not one of them. My prayer is that the families who endured this tragedy will find peace and forgive those of us who butted in with sensational news articles and strangers’ words that linger online forevermore.
Nor can I. That’s the greatest gift I’ve been given in this absurd decade:
I’ve finally accepted who I am, in Southern society, in my career, and in my heart.
I’ve come to understand that our deepest desires often intertwine with our deepest hurts and needs. Buried at the root of my attempts to be seen and heard was a natural longing to be loved and accepted. We arrive here needing those things to survive. Those who enjoy the privilege of belonging as our truest, fullest selves will never know just how rare it really is.
In the years since, I’ve hopped on and off social media and blogs like a hamster on a wheel, constantly spinning to be seen, heard, and valued. At the beginning of this year, I said, “Enough is enough.”
I want to write my sweet little Southern stories. I want to substitute teach, take care of my home, and love my family.
I want to pray to a God I know is there and worship that God in a way that brings me peace.
And I want to love others and live the days well.
Maybe I’ll write. Maybe I won’t.
But I know this much for sure: I’m so glad you’re here.
