mommyoverload-blog

[mommyoverload-blog]

Memories

In our digital age, everything is saved. Facebook shows us our memories of past posts, TimeHop shows us past pictures we took on our phones. A quick email search can pull up an email from the dawn of your hotmail account. It’s like a digital diary that can never truly be erased. But, what happens when you would rather not relive that pain or remember that time or have to feel those feelings again?

This happened to me this morning. A friend sent me a text looking for a recommendation for a counselor for her son. I typed ‘counselor’ in the search bar of my email and there it was.... an email from an old... something. I refer to this sender as a ‘something’ because it was never really titled. Boyfriend seems so silly with the type of relationship that it was or wasn’t. Anyway, it was serious. More serious than I am ever able to fully admit to myself that it was. It was also toxic in that this person ALWAYS made me feel crappy about myself amidst all the compliments and profession of feelings. It wasn’t him making me feel that way. It was me. I shouldn’t have opened the email. I shouldn’t have read and then re-read my response. I should have tried to delete it (again) and let it go to whatever cyber purgatory old emails go when they are never truly deleted. I think I had blocked all those old feelings out because they were too much for me to bear. That ‘something’ was an emotional rollercoaster of so many feelings that I felt child-like in trying to process them all. I sat at my desk, reading, biting back the tears and fighting off the chills and trying to just forget once was and is no more.

20 years ago, I would have picked up a letter instead of opening an email. If it hurt, I could have burned it and watched the ashes of the paper float away and pretended all the feelings associated were floating away too. Today, in 2019, we can’t do that. Sure, we can hit delete or create new accounts but, it’s all still there. All the highs and lows and goods and bads are all still there. All the hurts and joys are still accessible with the scroll of a mouse and an innocuous word typed in a search bar.

So, where do we go in the digital age when we want to forget? How do we put this part of our past away when it just only ever goes to a cloud somewhere that Apple controls and can be brought back when we least expect it?

I will likely regret someday typing these words out. I won’t want to remember typing this because it will remind me of an email that reminded me of feelings that I never wanted to remember again as long as I lived....

Hopefully by the time that happens, there will be a cure for the deletion of digital memories....

[mommyoverload-blog]

Newbie

I have heard people say “XYZ was on my heart”. I’ve always understood this to mean that they emotionally felt called to talk about something or reach out to someone, whatever the case may be. I’ve never had that feeling. Until now.....

This is my very first written post about something that is “on my heart”. For me, it feels like there is a tightness in my chest that has led my brain to believe that the only way to make that feeling release is if I get these words and feelings down on “paper” and into the universe. I tried actually picking up a pen and writing it all down on real paper for my own reading. It didn’t work. The tightness didn’t release. (My hand now also hurts and I realized my handwriting leaves much to be desired.) It did feel good to word-vomit in a seemingly endless run on sentence and piss-poor form of stream-of-consciousness.

My thoughts range from basic humanity to religion and a poor attempt to link the two in my own hopes of just finding a way for us all to really just stop being assholes to one another.

I have noticed more and more often while scrolling Facebook and reading the comments that people are mean. Not just mean, VICIOUS. The things that people type out to others absolutely breaks my heart. I was brought to tears over the weekend when reading conversations between FB users. It truly affected me in a way that I can’t process yet. In thinking about all of this, I was reminded of a bedtime story I was reading my son from his children’s bible. I’m not a religious person (I’m still working on that) but, this bible was gifted to my son and he loves hearing the stories and talking about them. In this particular story, a group of people were building a pyramid to reach heaven. God stopped this by creating languages. This confused the people and the construction stopped as they could no longer effectively communicate because they didn’t understand each other. I picture this new devisiveness creating groups- people banding together because they spoke the same language and could understand each other. This brought me to my next thought hop- when did people stop trying to EFFECTIVELY communicate? When did individuals stop trying to learn about other opinions and ideas and just become ASSHOLES?

Social media seems to have perpetuate this new breed of human “interaction” in which Sally can sit at home on her i-phone in Arizona and condemn Susie in Ohio to hell for all eternity and then go fundraise for the church bake sale. It’s disgusting. I read comment after comment from these seemingly “normal” profile pictures telling others to “go die” and “you should kill yourself”. How is this happening? Why is no one talking about this? I can’t imagine that in any belief system that the “higher power” would damn someone to hell for eternity for living their life the way they see best for themselves. I can’t imagine those followers being rewarded by said higher power for being judge mental jerks.

I had wine with a new Mommy-friend over the weekend. I caught myself being scared to tell her my policial views because she made it clear in some comments that she those who believed a certain way were clearly ignorant hillbillies who had no concept of the real world. Ouch! When did it become socially acceptable to write people off before ever knowing them? The next day, while trying to enjoy some retail therapy at ULTA, a stranger was incredibly rude because I happened to be crouched down looking at a product and was apparently in the way of where she wanted to walk. When did it become easier to be rude than to just say “Excuse me”?

I don’t understand the level of judgement and callousness people possess towards other people.

I see a million challenges online. “Try this magic shake for 30 days and drop 9million lbs!” “Try this skincare for a week and wash away all your imperfections!” “Use this makeup for 10 days and you will finally be beautiful!” What about a kindness challenge? WHAT IF instead of that negative comment or complaint you were about to make, you turned it into a positive comment or something you were grateful for? WHAT IF instead of casting some ridiculous judgment, we took the time to see another view? Even if we don’t agree, we TRIED to find some sort of common ground with another human in which we don’t just write them off. Do SOMETHING simple to change the course of another person‘s day. Maybe, in doing that, we could all release some shit from ourselves and have a better day.

Well, here’s to hoping my release worked and maybe these words will go out into the world and reach someone else who is feeling the same way. I hope that somehow, someone can get something out of this that they need. (Even if it’s just comic relief.) I hope that we all find a way to be kind, especially when it’s hard. I hope that we meet new people and learn something from each of them. I really just hope we can all be a little less of an asshole to each other.

Thanks-