For my birthday John surprised me with a quick trip out of town with my kids. We stayed the night at a bed and breakfast, zig-zagged our way through a fun little town, and rented bicycles. We cycled down country roads, pointed to darling farmhouses, talked about nothing and everything, felt the wind in our hair, and had a marvelous time.
While we were packing to head out, I told John I wanted to keep this trip to myself. I wasn’t going to post anything about it while we were gone, to anyone. I did post something quick on Twitter when I discovered the most darling used bookstore of my life, but other than that, I said nothing. I just lived the experience.
I was curious. I wanted to know what it would be like if I didn’t post anything about it. What would happen if I went all old school? Could I live an experience and not simultaneously share it?
What validates an experience?
Truthfully, I have really good friends on social media. I tweet and I post on Instagram and Facebook almost daily, and while I’ve never physically met many of the people with whom I interact, they are very dear to me, and feel very much like a real community of friends.
However, for the past several weeks, I’ve been coming across posts and books lamenting the tragic reality of smartphone addictions. Facebook tanked in the stock market this summer, (Maybe it didn’t tank, but stock went down.) and I’ve stumbled upon numerous negative remarks and posts concerning social media.
I actually started consistently blogging again in a small attempt to anchor my work in something outside the social media matrix.
When Judi was here, she talked about how she and my older sister, Rachael, went on a trip and rented bicycles together. Every time she mentioned how fun it was, my heart pitter-pattered. The idea of bicycling under the warm summer sun, down country roads, with John and my kids, clung to me like damp cotton.
We did it.
It was wonderful.
It felt cohesive, and integrated.
It felt whole and lovely and delightful, simply living the moments while I was in them.
I wasn’t thinking that I needed to take a picture and tell people about it.
I wasn’t reading anyone’s thoughts about the experience.
I was living it, and laughing through it.
When I turned forty I wrote a piece about catching the moments in between the bookends. I think that’s exactly what I was doing.
As I enter the decade of my forties, I want to live from the deep wellspring of life, love from a rich place of hope, rest in the goodness of God, and enjoy all that is mine in the land of the living.
Well, here I am, in the land of the living. It’s a remarkable place to be.
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