I’ve heard people say, “I’ve gotten rid of social media for, like, three months plus because I didn’t wanna be perceived.” I understand. For me, it was deeper than that. I got rid of mine because it was one step forward in choosing me. Growing up, I was always late to the curve: Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. I now realize I never created social media because I wanted it; I created it because I thought it would make me more. More attractive in the eyes of others, more accomplished to those I’d never meet in real life, more loveable, more validated. I realized that wasn’t a fair way for me to live life. I wanna wake up on a summer morning and smell the breeze of the parted clouds and retired neighbors cutting their grasses for no reason. I wanna wake up to the butterflies of what my day will entail, not my fellow stranger followers.
It scares me to think that we have so much access to everything of everything of everyone else. On one hand, it levels the playing field. On another, it levels the fear of love. Love in this case means abundance, surrenderance, and acceptance. One of the best things about life is it’s yours and everything you have in it is also yours. Mmm mmm mmm, how sweet. There is never a reason to harbor feelings of jealousy and comparison—what’s yours is yours, and no one can “yours” it like you do.
Everything up until this point has shaped me into who I am at this very moment. I heard in a great Korean show, “Let’s die in the spring.” In other words, let’s bloom. I’m not sure if I’ve ever lived life for me. I lived my life to please and impress. I thought being controlling and afraid was another way of saying, I know my path. When in actuality, it’s just another way of saying, I’m afraid to walk it. And I was afraid, still am some days—afraid of who I’ll be, afraid of who I was, afraid of what I’ll lose, afraid of what’s next. But I’m resting in the fact that flowers are surrounded with thorns.
So even in the scariest and uncertain of times, I’m met with protection in one way or another. Human existence is scary, but a human just existing is scarier. They say choose your hard, I say choose both your hard and scary. On the other side of these things is everything you and I have ever wanted.
Naomi C. Ilochi, professionally known as Chi Ilochi in her creative works, is a Nigerian American Writer, Poet, Artist, Singer / Songwriter, & Fashion Storyteller who aims to help heal through her revelations and realizations about herself and the world around her.
Featured image by Jacqueline Munguia on Unsplash.
