what next, twitter?

Twitter is going the way of the dodo. As I have written about at length —okay, I think I wrote a grand total of two blog entries in the past, and this makes three, but that’s a lot for me —Twitter meant a great deal to me. It meant the ability to meet likeminded people; it meant the ability to learn from the world at large; it meant social engagement because my schedule often does not allow for going places for enjoyment’s sake and the in-person people I know have similarly inflexible schedules; it meant creative inspiration. It meant a lot. And now, it means …? What does it mean? It’s hard to say. It’s not the same, though. Things have changed.

And maybe I’ve changed as well. When I started on Twitter, I wrote for children. I curse too much publicly for that now, of course. Twitter saw me through major life changes —correction: the people on Twitter saw me through major life changes. Twitter provided the platform. Social support is a huge thing, and mine happened to come from people who lived in my phone. They didn’t judge. They were available at strange hours. They had life experiences that made them particularly understanding about what I was dealing with. I couldn’t do that with the people I knew in daily life, but I could with the ragtag bunch of weirdos and misfits I came to know and love on an app that no longer exists. And now, several years on, I am a very different person from when I started. I’m braver; I’m wiser; I’m more compassionate in a way that makes life tricky sometimes, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Part of that is plain old growing up, but part of it is thanks to Twitter —correction: the people on Twitter. Twitter provided the platform.

I’m scared of the vacuum the loss of Twitter will leave, but again, I’m braver than I was. I was talking to my friend Elizabeth the other day about why social relationships are so difficult. I have challenges with executive functioning, and the organizational load of maintaining relationships is hard, particularly with everything else I have to manage. If it comes to a choice between adulting and having and keeping friends —and it does, because it’s just me here and I have responsibilities —I have to choose adulting. But the trade off for having underdeveloped organizational skills is cognitive flexibility. I adjust well, once it’s clear that way won’t work. I’m a pretty friendly, pretty open person, as long as the other person isn’t a complete asshole. I respond to opportunities that present themselves because I don’t tend to dwell on the past. Also, I’ve been told I’m a hell of a lot of fun, but that’s only when I pull it together enough to interact with people. I do have fun on my own, too, and will, I promise not to blow too many things up, but I digress. I just want to make sure my life doesn’t get swallowed up by adulting, because contrary to what you may have been led to believe elsewhere, it’s not a ton of laughs (although it can get ridiculous).

I think I’ve been going through the stages of grief, like Kübler-Ross talked about. Some people may be of the opinion probably that that’s pathetic —it’s an app, for Christ’s sake —and it’s fine if they do. It’s a loss for me. I have feelings. It’s another major life change. Parasocial relationships are fundamentally transactional, and that’s not really how I operate. To me, many relationships I formed on Twitter are social relationships, and I don’t regret that. Society as it currently operates wants to make all of our relationships parasocial —none of it matters lol. To the extent that I am able to have any say in it, I refuse to let that happen. I care that it’s your birthday, that you passed that big exam, that you graduated, that your kids graduated, that you died. I care.

So I’ve been cycling through denial (it’s not happening), anger (screw that guy!), bargaining (maybe I can make it work), depression (it’s all going away), and acceptance (it’s happening). Thankfully, no one is dying —-and I want everyone to go on and have a wonderful life, wherever they end up! —but I know for me, the loss will be significant, and I don’t know what’s next. I signed up for Bluesky, but it reminds me a lot of Mastodon, which …okay. I refuse to have anything to do with Facebook/Instagram/Threads/whatever. My brain can’t handle TikTok —where the format of Twitter really suited my brain (fast mapping!), TikTok makes me feel like I’m in one of those parties with 20 five-year-olds hopped up on sugar all in the same bouncy house and someone thought it was a good idea to introduce techno and a black light. So probably not. I think I’m just gonna hang out on the blog here and mutter to myself a bit maybe, perhaps take up a hobby or two, do some traveling, read some books, see who I am when I’m not chatting with people. We’ll see.

climbing not everest

“It’s not Everest.” He rolls his eyes.

It isn’t Mt. Everest. He’s right. It’s a short hike —4 miles round trip, with a little over 1000 feet of elevation gain. It should be easy. We’ve done much harder.

We’re here because we’re both out of school (him as a student, me as staff) because they are closed. We both understand that this time needs to be spent well. We both like being outside, and so, here we are, avoiding other people out in the fresh air.

There are no official lessons from the school district yet, but I’m mindful I should be using every opportunity I can to teach him things. I do that anyway, but it takes on new significance when there is nothing else. Today’s lesson presents itself 0.6 miles from the end of the trail where we’re supposed to turn around. The trail was fine where we started —dry, no tree roots or larger rocks to avoid; now, it’s icy on an incline.

“Should we keep going?” I ask, looking doubtful.

“Yes!” He acts like it’s the stupidest thing in the world to turn around now.

And here’s our lesson: “Do you know about the Everest effect?”

This is the point where he rolls his eyes.

“No, I’m serious. You’re not in school. You’re going to learn something. Do you know what it is?”

He doesn’t answer. I take that to mean no and continue.

“The closer you are to a goal, the harder it is to abandon it, even if everything else is telling you it’s not a good idea. What do we know about our situation?”

“It’s right over there!”

“Yes, it is,” I acknowledge. “That’s something that says we should finish —we’ve come so far, it’s so close. What else do we know?”

“It’s icy.”

“Yes. That’s something that says maybe we shouldn’t finish. What else do we know?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. What do we have with us?” I can be tenacious when I’m trying to get twelve year olds to think. And annoying, judging from his facial expression. “Do we have what we need?”

We had left everything that is useful for ice in the car. “No.”

“What else do we know?”

“Fine. Let’s go.” He’s rolling his eyes again. I’m pretty sure he wants me to shut up, but dammit, I’m educating.

“What else do we know? Maybe you’re right. We are almost there. Why wouldn’t we finish? You’re not in school. This is your school today. We’re almost there. That’s our goal —kind of like when people go to summit Everest. Even though this is not Everest,” I say pointedly. “Why wouldn’t we finish, even though the goal is right there? What do we know? We know it’s right there. We know it’s icy.”

“On a hill.”

“On a hill. We know we don’t have crampons or walking sticks.” After that, we discuss more. We consider worst case scenarios involving the hospital and the coronavirus. We consider that we live nearby and can visit again. I tell him about the mountain climber I heard say once: a successful summit is the one where you make it back down safely. We discuss the importance of taking risks, but we also discuss the importance of taking as many factors into account that we can think of when deciding whether a risk is worth it at a particular time (training, resources, and other things almost-13 year olds don’t generally talk about with their mothers, at least not voluntarily).

We make it down without slipping too much —one or two times each. No one falls. There are no unnecessary trips to urgent care. It is a successful summit. I hope he learned something, even if it wasn’t Everest.