I Can Count All of my Close Friends on One Hand, and That’s OKAY

I don’t have many friends, and for the first time in my life I feel perfectly content with that. It has taken me (almost) 25 years, moving 5,000 miles from home and many failed friendships to come to this realization. This was not an epiphany that occurred overnight, but definitely one that has been a long time coming.

I realize that sometimes people are just shitty friends, for the lack of a better term. Sometimes people are not worth your time. And I don’t need to keep them or their negativity in my life. And that has been the most freeing realization of all. I can walk away. 

And I did just that: I stopped calling back the women who couldn’t (wouldn’t) make time for me. I deleted numbers of those who have talked down to me, and I unfriended two dozen accounts of people who haven’t spoken to me since they bullied me in High School. And you know what was left when I cut all of these people out? My Tribe.

My tribe. My Ride or Dies. My people. My friends. My family.

These are the ones worth my time. Worth my effort and love, because they give it back to me ten fold.

And so, I may be able to count my number of close friends on one hand, but those friends are my fingers, and make me the strongest fist.

With that I say Goodnight and may you have a wonderful day filled with Coffee, Cats and Cusswords

Instagram: coffeecatsandcusswords

My First Blog Post

Make a blog they said; it will be easy they said. It was in fact, not easy.

I recently have been dabbling in the idea of spreading my social media wings. I have been relatively successful on Instagram’s platform, but it only feels skin deep. (Literally and figuratively.) Instagram is where I project what I want you to see in photos, but there is no personality to match with them, therefore it feels like you’re not really getting to know me.

So why does this matter? Why do I care if people only see what I want them too? And for a while, it didn’t matter. It felt nice to have anonymous people liking my photos, it filled some kind of happiness inside me. But it never lasted, I was constantly thinking “What should my next post be” and “how do I get more likes?” Outings with friends were no longer about time together but making sure it was documented by photographs and time spent with family was spent on my phone. I couldn’t eat a meal without taking a picture of it first. All the sudden I felt obsessed with gaining approval from thousands of perfect strangers.

I didn’t notice the obsession in myself until I saw it in others. Having to retake 100’s of photos for other friends pages and having to repeat myself constantly because the first time they weren’t listening; they were on their phone. The irritation I felt in others made me come face to face with my own social behaviors.  I was missing real time memories because I was too busy trying to make them perfect for the internet. And once I became conscious of this I felt a shift in myself and social media.

I do not plan on stopping my use of social media, but plan on becoming more conscious with it. I have started a new platform, which you are reading right now. My goal is to show everyone my authentic self, online and in the real world. To me, that means putting words to my pictures.

If you’re still reading this far, I applaud and thank you. I am not known for have short and concise points.

And with that I say Goodnight and may you have a wonderful day filled with Coffee, Cats and Cusswords

Instagram: coffeecatsandcusswords