time spent offline

“Wherever you go, there you are,” he used to warn me.

This was after he gave up the pleading, and we both settled for defiance; somewhere in between disdain and indifference. I was inconsolable; These walls, I would scream, come alive each morning and raise their voices at me to mock me, to ask how come I’m still here, and he would keep on talking as if I were muted; “You’re not listening to me, wherever you go…” And after the fact, after defiance turned into indifference and there are things you simply cannot sustain on non-feeling, I would look back and realize I never so much as whispered— The screams were all in my head. And after the fact, much later, it bothered me endlessly to find out we were both right: Sometimes you gotta leave, and every time, you must face yourself.

I had to leave social media.

It was easy, at least back in 2013. Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat all asked only once, and very briefly, if I were sure. I said yes on impulse and with a click of a button they were all gone. By 2017, it was a bit harder; Twitter wanted to make sure I was really sure— really, really sure, and every time I said I wanted to leave, every time I threatened, Twitter would plead I stay and grant me a 30-day grace period to return. It worked, and worked, and worked until one day I found a trick of my own; A 7×7 grid to be crossed off each day for accomplishing a task. I only needed 30 days. I wrote No Twitter on top and crossed it off each morning I woke up victorious: 29…13…7…2… And just like that, I got off social media. And the end of the first year without it, I was sufficiently adapted to living without social media.

One random day, it occurred to me I was no longer filtering every experience, feeling, moment I had with the thought of how do I best share this with the avatars? And I stopped thinking about doing things just for the sake of showing the avatars that I, too, was living and living well. I began to forget the people that didn’t exist in my immediate reality and with that went away the self-comparison, the self-pity that comes from comparing my worst to their best. I also looked around and wondered where all the exceptionally, unbelievably hot people went; Even beautiful people are ordinarily beautiful in reality. I was grateful then I left social media.

“You know this forum, anyway I was reading about topic…” and as I blabber, she responds nonchalantly, “You’re really into the forums…” It was as if she had reached through the screen and punched me square in the face; It only hurts when you know it is true, and you see by then I was supposed to be off social media, off the forums, Off-line. I even had a newsletter by a similar title to share my journey of (re)discovering the joys of the offline world. Yet, no matter my best intentions, my all-consuming desire to get offline, I often found myself scrolling the forums endlessly, relentlessly; desperate for another insightful, fun, interesting topic to pass the time.

Truthfully, now I understand; my desperation was really to escape myself. What lurked beneath, trapped underneath the debris of defiance, disdain, indifference, terrified me endlessly. And so by day I would write to you about turning my iPhone into a dumb phone, ask if you, too, should quit social media, and other radical digital detox ideas, and by night I would be scrolling the forums to numb the terror of having to face walls that could talk, that mocked and terrorized me every morning upon waking up; “You’re not listening to me, wherever you go…” Huh? I would look up numbly, trying to make out the words I could hear but I simply could not understand. I could barely recognize reality and the forums became my solace; My defiance against having to endure reality I had no desire living in. A cry for help. A silent scream.

When I finally made it home late in 2022— All bruised up, patched up— I was defiant. All those years taking up the punches have built up callouses thick as the scream lodged in my heart, and upon my return I felt strong enough to face it all without a single whimper, and without my most cherished numbing agent. I literally faced it: In therapy, my morning journals, endless calls to friends, the adults, and even strangers; Until their kindness, the truth emerging in those quiet mornings spent pouring it all out on the empty pages, began to soften the edges. It helped the walls stopped talking; in fact, they cheered me on for my return home, and one day, without the internet to numb, repress, suppress, ignore, the rage irrupted: I remained still, I wept. And I knew then, I understood; emotions just want to be felt and all the running away, pacifying, rectifying was suffocating me, drowning me. I had to leave, and that was the easy part. And I had to face myself, and that pulled me apart, sorted me out, and freed me right up.

“Wherever you go, there you are,” I chuckle to myself as I write it down on the empty pages as a reminder— Happy to be here; somewhere in between earth and heaven.