It’s the end of September and I need to publish
a blog. I started to write one about how we might be living in an experiment,
and it requires more thinking. So, I’m posting what I
wrote for a storytelling event a few months ago. Next month, I'll bring in the Hinge stories, and maybe it will weave wonderfully with the
experiment theory. (BTW I cancelled Hinge because I met a hippie on the same
custody agreement as me, and meeting once a month seems to fulfill that crave
for human touch). But until then, here’s a tale from my past. I made a comic
about this a while back, but it’s a story that just keeps on giving! Thanks for
reading and I hope you have a magical fall.
Two Bananas
You would never know this from looking at me, but I was once
a cyberstalker. I was unsuccessful in my cyberstalking. A successful cyber
stalker gets to drop the title. They are just called persistent.
In my early thirties, I was a full-blown cyber stalker, and
at the time, I was full-blown married with two young kids. At night, I would
flip open my laptop and browse the web. Innocently, at first, but all roads led
to looking up an ex-boyfriend. The guy I dumped to be with the guy I married.
I’d walk to the fridge for a Coors Light the moment one
emptied, and after a few hours, I was wasted and completely uninhibited. I’d
message my ex on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. At first, there
was engagement. He’d reply to or like my comments.
After a certain point, it became beyond excessive. I’d
drunkenly send him emails filled with misspellings and video links to Charles
Bukowski poems. One morning, I woke up and wanted to see what I had done the
night before. Blacking out while cyber-stalking is never a good idea, but I was
too far gone at that point. I went on Twitter and saw I had repeatedly tweeted
at him, “I love you.”
My heartbeat shot off the charts. Hungover, I deleted all
the tweets and got my kids breakfast. From then on, I was blocked from all his
accounts. I could no longer go on his Instagram and like a picture of him and
his girlfriend, thinking, "Awe, so happy for him. She seems like a nice
second choice."
He basically vanished from social platforms. I did him a favor because it became scientifically backed up that social media is unhealthy. I don’t know how they figured this out, as it has proven to be a great source of productivity and connection for me.
My ex was not available anymore for me to drunkenly tug at
his pant leg, begging for attention. I can’t say I didn’t stop trying. He had
kept LinkedIn. You know LinkedIn sends you an email, letting you know who
looked at your page. I would intentionally log in, so he would know that I was
checking out all his business stuff.
I eventually stopped, and not because LinkedIn is really
boring, but because I got sober, and found reading a book and going to sleep
was more fun than running around the internet with a lampshade on my head.
Now, I realize that I was super lonely and acting like a
two-year-old who fingerpaints on the walls so their parents will yell at them.
Eventually, I started to live in a less dire state of mind. I learned that it's
okay to have sadness or loneliness, and these feelings pass. I try to live for
the moment. So if someone asks, “What are you up to?”
I don’t look down the barrel of my long-term goals, and
speak of hope for a manic episode, so I edit a book I wrote. I’ll just lay out
what is right in front of me, and say, “Well, I have two bananas on my counter,
and they are already spotted brown. I have GOT TO eat them today. I can’t put
it off another day.”
Life can feel like it is a hamster wheel, but if you’re
lucky, you can look back and see it wasn’t actually a wheel, but one of those
clear hamster balls. At times, the hamster might run itself repeatedly against
the wall, but eventually it gets knocked back on a forward path.
Every seven years, on average, our cells regenerate. With
the new body, I find a new mind. The person I am now is totally different from
the cyber stalker I was two persons ago. Even though she’s gone, I love her and
don’t care that she went kind of crazy. I get it. I still wonder what that ex
is up to now. Who is this version of him, all these years later?
The thought of him sort of sits on my kitchen counter next
to the browning bananas. One day, it will get ripe enough for me to need to
take action. Sink my teeth back into that man.
But you never know what the next seven years might bring. I
now know, don’t force your long-term goals. Put them off for the better version
of yourself to deal with. Maybe she will be persistent.
