So Long, Instagram

I don’t know about you, but there’s something about the shifting seasons in September that always incites change in me. Some years it’s just a natural end of a friendship that isn’t reciprocal. Others it’s a commitment to exercise now that the kids are back in school. Often it’s as simple as promising myself I’ll fold the laundry weekly, a promise I always make — and break.

But this year has been categorically different.

It could be that I turned 50 in January.

Or that I crossed the belabored threshold from perimenopausal into menopause, after over a decade of symptoms — and am now officially “post menopausal”.

Perhaps it’s that our oldest graduated high school and flew the coop, a massive achievement not only for the individual, but for the parents who reared this amazing human.

In all likelihood, it’s all these things. And more.

I’m at the age where it’s all but certain I have less than half my life to enjoy. Which means every second counts, and honestly counts more everyday. So, how do I want to spend these moments? The one thing I know for sure: I don’t want to waste time staring at a screen mindlessly, distracted from what really matters.

So I did something extreme, sorta like the garden we tend.

I’ve logged out of my Instagram account — and deleted the app off my phone.

What precipitated this massive change? I find myself checking social media too often every day. I constantly compare myself to others, which does nothing for my ongoing anxiety and depression (thank you, menopause). I am fed viral videos I can happily – joyfully - thrive without, videos that further chip away at my attention span. And, at the same time, I find it increasingly harder to find and enjoy the content that fuels me.

This extreme decision is not unlike my reckless behavior in my twenties. Perhaps I’m not thinking this through. Maybe this is the 40’ cliff I used to jump off of into the Santiam River on a hot August weekday. Will the water be deep enough this time? Will I feel refreshed?

All I know is that the way I’ve been working for the last 5 years is no longer sustainable or healthy for me. I thrive when I try new things, so breaking up with my phone and the apps that connect me to the world, I hope, in the end, will foster a new phase of creativity, one with deeper meaning and from the most authentic place: my heart.

Because my heart’s just not in the daily grind of content creation.

How You Can Support and Follow Me

Subscribe to You Tube

I will be uploading videos to You Tube more consistently, starting today. Please subscribe to my channel and share with your friends, especially folks who may not have heard the news yet.

Share my Post

Even though I’m no longer on social media, you can help ensure followers know I’m on other channels by sharing my post to your stories. Here’s a link to my posts discussing my (indefinite) departure:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seedtofork/

What Does the Future Hold?

I don’t have the answers, except to know that moving away from social media, even for a brief few month trial period, has been a long time coming for me. If it means I am no longer a go-to gardening expert in the digital world, perhaps that is a gift I didn’t know my life needed.

I’m trusting my gut with this one, and hoping the space will offer me generative paths to meander this coming season.

Thanks for supporting me, and thanks for making it easy to leap off this cliff into the unknown with you.