The Blogger Project

I pulled a chair up to my study desk about a year ago; I couldn't imagine that six month had gone by since I said I wanted to leave Facebook. But for me, the funny videos and the promotion for my book then two-year old book, not to mention the connection with friends near and far, seemed too hard to let go of.

And believe me, this conversation was one I had with myself years ago but this time, it seemed like it was crazy that I would put all of that behind and move on to what? Twitter? Games? Burying myself in reading textbooks for school? I must have been losing my mind, but whether I was losing my mind or not, this had to be done - I had to let go of the crazy abyss that social media had me.

As I sat back on my chair with my eyes staring at the ceiling and listening to the sound of my dorm-mates having the time of their lives upstairs, it hit me like an epiphany! I suddenly realized that from the moment I created that new account of Facebook in 2011 (after deleting one just a few months before), I had gone back into the mental prison from which I escaped. I promised myself that there was no way in hell that I would allow myself again to lie on my bed for hours scrolling through feeds that I had seen hours before. I couldn't allow myself to let a virtual community dictate how I dressed, the pictures I posted, the friends I had, the thoughts that I shared.

Of course, it's easy to say that those choices were rightfully mine, but behind the "freedom of expression" image that it painted, Facebook subtly shouts to us and screamed at me "you can't share this quote! This picture's not good enough! Is that all the friends you have?" with the equal ending phrase "who's going to like that?" I slowly realized that somewhere the girl who was brave enough to stand to share her feelings was now just another girl...just another Caribbean girl on social media. I was losing my identity.

A few days ago, I sat on the dining table after dinner with my boyfriend and I told him that for the umpteen time, this was it. This was the end of the back and forth uneasiness and the constant shared opinion that I "disliked" Facebook while, at the same time, scrolling through news feeds again and again, revisiting things I saw hours prior.

He looked at me and smiled. I guess he assumed that I was just throwing another fit and I would go right back to signing into Facebook again in the morning. I was serious, but I couldn't blame his hesitance to response. Geez, I had been crying wolf forever! But as
we sat there in the silence, I exclaimed, "I'm going to blog!" He shook his head and looked at me. Without having to use his words, I knew he said in his mind "You've been saying so forever."

So this is what happened, and here I am now.

Hopefully, this Caribbean girl gets to look back at this and find a way to tell the stories she's pent up or spark the flames of the poetry somehow dying within her.

Welcome to my blogspot😊