At the height of my “I desperately want a baby but don’t see how that can happen” panic a few years back, I unfollowed all my friends with children on instagram.
Announce your pregnancy? Immediate triggered unfollow!
Show your adorable children doing adorable things? Immediate triggered unfollow!
It was the social media equivalent of a tantrum in the grocery store and NOW I’M TOO EMBARRASSED TO RE-FOLLOW MY FRIENDS.
There’s a lot to unpack here, my doves.
My first thought as I started thinking about this, rather than letting my brain skitter away like usual, was “These are not the actions of a mature adult.”
It’s been years since this happened, these are actual real-life friends, and I’ve just been letting it ride. Letting my mind jump merrily away to something else rather than confront it.
Honestly, I hoped to just have kids and then accidentally delete my account and start over. Yes, that was a real plan.
My second thought: “Be kinder to yourself.”
It was the right thing for me to do at the time. I would get on Instagram and start sobbing big ugly cry tears. Removing the triggers felt like the only real option in that moment. (I guess the mute button wasn’t around yet? Or I just didn’t know it existed?) (I’ve officially hit Grandma Wants Her Typewriter Back levels of technical savvy over here.)
My third thought: “Why is this still a thing?”
It became a splinter that moved in and set up house. It didn’t hurt much, but it would jab me every so often.
It’s probably because this whole issue is a splinter in my soul and I genuinely don’t know what to do about it. 42 isn’t too late for kids, but it’s too late to not be chasing it down with every fiber of my being, a being that’s still concerned about things like paying bills and social media and committed relationships, things I genuinely did not expect to still be an issue into my forties. Hitting your midlife crisis at the same time as (the ninth iteration of ) your I Really Want To Have Kids crisis is inconvenient.
Since I don’t know what to do about the bigger issue (kids), but I do know what to do about the smaller issue (social media), here’s my plan:
Talk about it (hi!), because expressing things is how I move through them, and I haven’t done nearly enough of that in the past few years and it’s definitely affected my general wellbeing and mental health.
Re-follow my friends. Sure, I may trigger again when confronted with evidence of Family Life, but I am so much better at handling triggers than I was a few years ago. (Not, like, great. But better. Definitely better!)
The small child in me worries that they’ll be hurt or mad. The grownup in me recognizes that this is not an issue in anyone’s life but mine. My friends are kind and well-adjusted people who, if they give it any thought at all, will think something along the lines of “I totally get it. You do what you need to do. My loud children will be here whenever you’re ready.”
I am proud to announce that my reaction to the most recent round of Beautiful New Facebook Babies has triggered more “I can share your obvious joy” than “My fingers are now big and green because I am the Unfollow Hulk.”
Which feels like progress. Good progress, because there’s also a lot to unpack here energetically.
When we react negatively to someone else having what we want, we hold that very thing away from ourselves. When we’re in the sheer cyclone of joy that “this thing that I want exists in the world and someone I love has it”, we’re summoning that thing like we have a wand from Ollivander’s and a solid understanding of the Accio charm. I’m not saying I don’t have kids because I unfollowed some of my favorite humans on social media once and then didn’t know what to do about it after, but it probably didn’t help.
And that’s okay. We can always clean up our energy and our actions and re-follow and express and be embarrassed and then stop. We can always step back into expecting our desires to show up like we graduated from Hogwarts with honors.