From my drafts folder, unfinished in the winter of 2021, hopefully finished 12/12/22. Facebook isn't cool anymore, but it’s as hard to quit as my Newport 100s habit.
I stopped to think about it: I’m 35, and I joined Facebook as a student of UMASS Boston in 2005. 17 years ago I was 19, now I’m 35. My entire adult life is chronicled on Facebook. Ups, Downs… photos of festivals, dogs, ex girlfriends, beers, and parties, and everything I shouldn't have put on there. the Facebook memories make me cringe, and remind me that i did actually say and do fun interesting things occasionally when I wasn't being the lord of mentally ill, polysubstance abusing, self absorbed millennial cringe.
I have a terrible habit of oversharing, oversharing on social media is a precursor to oversharing on a blog. I used to get really down on myself, comparing my life with the successful people i know who have money, jobs, homes, kids, significant others…etc.. my former, longest tenured AA sponsor Michael Guccione used to say “hey man, that's just people’s highlight reel”, he said “hey man” before a lot of the gems he dispensed to me and it made them 100x better.
Fuck a highlight reel. I want to be the entire existence, chronicled in public as a kind of ridiculous performance art. I’m a lot of things: an exhibitionist, poor, creative, resilient , musical, intelligent, marginalized, mentally ill, an addict, the proletariat, a writer, self centered, self aware, and pretentious. i intend to be all of those things, because it isn’t like i have any choice or idea of how to be anything else. Sure, i can look at succesful normal people have the token american dream going on, and i can fuck myself all up about it, but heres the thing: i can do things that they cant do and i know things that they don’t know. I’m an individual…if it’s too much allow me to give you a tutorial on the unfollowing of things that upset you.
I'll just say this: somehow I figured out how to stop comparing myself to others, and got a little more comfortable with what I'm working with. it feels pretty good, email me if you need unfollow instructions: ev.penk7@gmail.com.
