Your digital testimonies intrigue, perplex, and overwhelm me. My soul is shaken with grief. Your lives, laid bare before me, display their brokenness. Where is your voice behind all of those pixels and words? I am trying to read your story with the scroll button of my mouse. I have missed you (have I?), and I want to know you again, where you are and, perhaps, where you have been. But who is going to interpret this senseless clutter of words, sounds, and pictures?
What am I looking for? Your "pages" do not fit into a book that I can read from start to finish. There is no end to this maze of underlined words and dead-end photographs. It is an unattractive gridlock, signifying very little. Cheap, seductive poses. Columns of dialogue as prolific as bacteria but without substance or emotion. Interchangeable lists of pop-culture nouns, presented as flimsy proof of individuality. This journey of constant clicking presents so much but offers so little in the end. I give up and write. Your stories, I conclude, are all the same, and I am no longer interested. How can all of us be so cool?
I think I stand above you, looking down. So many of you were my friends, somewhere along the way, who rejected me and moved along. Was I completely forgotten, passed over? Or did I leave something behind, something of truth and significance that I might have imparted, in spite of my timidity? Our intertwined destinies have loosened and separated, leaving us connected only by the continually thinning frays of distant memories. This is my list of favorites.
Secrets shared and games of defining character played upon the wide-open range of the playground.
Countless birthday parties to which I was given but one, non-repeated invitation.
Girls. Girls. Girls. A day or two of love and validation, followed by years of waiting, hoping, and reminiscing upon those handful of said (bittersweet) days.
Your childhood is fled. Your innocence never really was. But this is our youth! What are we doing? Our lifeblood has been converted into cash by people in fancy offices. I am looking in from the outside, either too afraid or too disgusted to let myself into your proud circle. Should I also expose myself to the turmoil of this voyeuristic wasteland? Should I expose my need of affirmation? No, really. I need it. I still try to be cool. You were the cool ones! But I think that you are all trapped. How do I know? Because you all "logged in" today!
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