Last weekend I took an unexpected trip to Thormanby Island with my adopted second family. It turned out the invitation was actually a trap to get me – and a few other extended family members – up to the summer cabin for a massive purge of all the random clutter that has been accumulating for the last 40 or so years.
I didn’t mind the ulterior motives – I’ve been a regular visitor to Buccaneer Bay for most of my life, so it felt good to pitch in and help take care of a place responsible for many of my happiest childhood memories.
It felt good to see my second family – it had been a while.
Between living in Montreal, moving here to the Coast and general life business, my contact with Jack – one of my best and certainly my oldest friend – and his family has dwindled badly.
When Jack and I were children, we had regular weekend sleepovers during the school year and took summer trips together that lasted weeks and weeks. We shared the kind of childhood experiences that most kids – not even “less fortunate” kids – don’t even believe are possible. It cemented a friendship we knew would last our entire lives.
Lately though, I barely call him.
Mostly I get random, sporadic texts from Jack and sometimes we snap chat each other with weird things we come across. He’s on Facebook, I’m on Facebook, so I know he’s there if I need to reach out, but I usually don’t.
There have been a lot of studies done on the subject of social media and the juxtaposition of hyper-connectivity and isolation. What most – if not all – of them are finding is that social media is not a replacement for real human interaction. A smiley face and a like are nice when you see them, but they’re forgotten almost instantly. Certainly nothing like making a joke and hearing real laughter.
Unfortunately, what does seem to leave a lasting impression on social media is the lack of likes.
This quantifiable proof of popularity has become like an addiction in modern society. Getting your fix is only enough to get you to normal, not actually give you any sense of joy or fulfillment.
When Jack called to invite me up to the cabin, I told him, “I don’t know. I’ll try to make it.”
It was unexpected and I had been planning on spending my weekend alone and ignoring the outside world.
It seemed too hard to break my normal cycle and do something different, but the next morning I woke up to five missed calls at 2:30 a.m. from Jack and cousin Joe – who had apparently been out on the town together the night before.
They missed me. They wanted to – just for a little while – pretend that everything was like it was when we were children, frozen in a simpler time.
I’m willing to make-believe again.
