Earth Woman

For someone who regularly spouts off about the perils of social media and how much I hate the digital era, I sure spend a lot of time on Facebook and Instagram. And for all of social media’s ‘cons’ (I use that word loosely) it does have its pros (again, translate as inclined.)

As a confirmed introvert, I’m not one who’s ever chased popularity. I don’t even chase relationships. This is where Facebook has smoothed things over, helping to cultivate a beautiful friendship garden I’d never worked at seeding.

This year marks my 40^th high school reunion, and despite several kind invitations sent out from those on the reunion committee, I’d been ambivalent about attending a resurgence of high school popularity/unpopularity hell. That’s when I received a Facebook message from a former schoolmate. She shared her own thoughts about feeling she should attend the reunion, but also not wanting to attend the reunion, and I felt like she’d read my soul!

We waffled back and forth together on the issue, deciding against self-imposed torture, and then got to talking about our high school experiences and our lives today – all via Facebook chat.

We didn’t hang out in the same circles during those high school years. She had her friendship group and I bounced around, never really landing anywhere. I found out a lot of what she struggled with during high school very much mirrored my own experiences. In fact, we’d lived pretty parallel high school lives in a sort of mutually exclusive way, and we didn’t even realize it. If we’d had social media at the time, would we have connected sooner? Probably.

Anyway, turns out our adult lives are just as similar as our teenaged years, along with our long-held ideals which she so poetically expressed to me in a recent FB note. I was so taken by her message I asked if I could “put it out there.” Here’s that piece of writing:

I dream of being an earth woman wearing flowing colourful cotton, living in the forest, playing with my crystal singing bowls for the deer and the bears, doing Reiki on entitled Gen Zs who can’t handle the slights of real life. Maybe that will be my future.

Want to join me on my hillside? We can laugh, drink wine or milkshakes, feed the deer and be sarcastic old curmudgeons together.