Happy New Year, Planet Maybe Friends!!!
It is 2023, and it is hard to believe that so much time has gone by since we began to seriously consider that a virus may, in fact, wipe us all out..phew!!!
Dear Science, thank you, I love you.
To those we lost, I am so very sorry, and I love you.
Time has paced by in a strange panicked anxious blur, and I am not sure where I have landed with it all.
I know that I ate most of my feelings and gained a certain amount of weight. While I do feel frustrated about that as far as being uncomfortable in my body right now, and only having so many jeans that fit..kinda…I am not going to dwell on it because we were and still are getting by the best we can. There is no sense in shaming ourselves at the end of a world pandemic because of some survival strategy glitch.
I haven’t made any resolutions for 2023 because I tend not to do the things I say I am going to do, so I am trying a little reverse psychology on myself (just don’t let me read this).
I will eat more fish and chicken and fewer french fries….just because.
Fuck it…I need those delicious golden devils !!
I have been dwelling a lot on one particular subject for a while now, and I feel it would do me some good to divulge my thoughts here with you because that is the point of this newsletter. So here it is…the big question …
Who am I?
We start thinking about it at a very young age when our parents and teachers ask us what we want to be when we grow up. I always said I wanted to be a teacher but alas…that is not what has happened.
Then, in high school, we start to think about what we will do for our post-secondary education or our trade. We need to find a path and follow it all while navigating puberty and acne, which doesn’t seem fair. I wanted to be a screenwriter..but alas that didn’t happen.
Following any path isn’t easy. Paths aren’t always paved in gold and sunshine, sometimes, it is mud, and you get stuck, and other times there are weeds, lousy weather, and dangerous predators.
Then everything else happens…marriage, kids, vacations, and funerals…
Even if you follow the path perfectly and check all the boxes, does that answer the question of “Who am I?”.
The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Is this a poem about following your path and embracing your individuality? or is it, as critic David Orr deemed, “the most misread poem in America.” America’s Most Widely Misread Literary Work
I am incapable of choosing a path…
So I tend to sit at the beginning of the crossroads, frozen to the spot, making lists of pros and cons and trying to see how either path could satisfy my identity…and thus will probably grow old and die there.
I am 47 years old, and I still ask myself the question who am I? all the time. But, unfortunately, I don’t know if there is an answer or if those who seem to get it are pretending or simply settling into the path they signed up for.
I can say with great confidence that I married the right guy, I love my furry children with all my heart, my house is my cozy sanctuary, and I have a deep need to write….so I guess that is something I know.
Social media has added a whole new way to experience an identity crisis. I am grateful that I didn’t grow up with it because I know it would have been a toxic experience for young Michelle.
How do we know what our identity is when posting alternate realities online? I heard a young person refer to the things we post for everyone to see as the “highlight reel” of our lives…it is not ALL the shit that occurs.
(There is also the fact that if people just posted their low times, that social media would be like a Sarah Maclachlan song..the place you go when you want to die a little.)
Confession…
I don’t post a picture of myself without using a filter…what a shocker right? LOL, When I look at the picture I have taken, I immediately zero in on the aspects that I find visually unappealing and then apply different filters until I feel a sensation of satisfaction or some weird self-hating joy. But…the person I am is the person in the first picture, the unappealing one. The final result is NOT who I am and is not my TRUE identity. We have been trained to alter our appearances because otherwise…maybe…we wouldn’t be likable? I mean…there is an actual like button, so we are being brainwashed into looking, judging, and liking…and sometimes just rolling our eyes at each other from the safety of our toilets.
There are a lot of people who have become wealthy by posting pictures of themselves.
Sometimes they wear an outfit sent to them by a company, therefore promoting it, or they drink a particular beverage or eat at a specific restaurant. Whatever it is…they are being paid to connect the feeling we get from looking at their picture to a brand so that we associate the two together and, in turn, desire the product for ourselves. These people are referred to as influencers.
Influencers spend all their time manipulating their appearance with picture angles, filters, diets, and makeup to portray something to us. What is the real identity of an influencer, though? Are they living a lie to make their fortune? Does it matter to them if they are? Are there consequences to them psychologically?
I worry about the world. I worry about young people. I fear that we are floating around, not knowing who we are, playing dress up, and manipulating each other’s emotions for an unfulfilling profit at someone else’s expense.
If I could make a wish rather than a resolution for 2023. I wish that everyone who feels lost will take a break from social media, bad news, overpriced eye creams, and everyone’s opinions about everything and spend some time sipping tea, reading a great book, meditating in a dark room with candles, kissing someone you love, and reconnecting with yourself and who you truly are.
xo
Michelle Lee Stuart
Ummm…they forgot my squeaky things…I would like to speak to a manager.
Loved this. Sometimes I feel like you are reading my mind! So many things you mentioned in this piece, I have also thought about, discussed with others or complained about! And I too worry about the world, on a daily basis.🙄 Good read.
Thanks you Michelle.
Sounds like you know yourself pretty darn well, Michelle. So, pat yourself on the back. And maybe have some fries. I'm almost seventy and I think it's fun to go with the flow and see where life leads me. I've never liked thinking about the future. The simple things that you have - a husband you love, your pets, your sanctuary, your writing - don't underestimate any of these things. They are solid gold. And oh, that last pic! Lol, so sweet. xo
P.S. Ugh to social media and I too feel sorry for the youth of today. My kids are 36 and 41 and they always say how glad they are to have grown up playing outside without cell phones etc.