I don’t know who to be online anymore…

• Shall I swipe on a filter and attempt to commiserate?

• Shall I slap on a bold lip and pretend this isn’t a profoundly difficult time to be semi-alive?
 
• Shall I risk over-sharing and/or TMI with a post of me without concealer/ at the doctor’s office/ or after another setback?
 
• [this is no brainer, but] More Tati pics?
 
• Who am I if I’m not posting from the dressing room / telling you I’m acting / writing / Jewish / married / in __ country / have-now-don’t-have colitis? / got a haircut?
 
Who are any of us?
We are so much dust.
And we are stardust.
We contain multitudes.

For all of us, “ONLINE” is a portal to another world—for better and for worse, and I don’t know who “avatar Al” is anymore. I don’t know who to be, what I should be. I have no clue what a human brand is and if humans should have one. I love being a beacon of information, buoying, and connection—and then again, sometimes I don’t.
 
Maybe I never understood how to *present* on here in the first place and the cracks are starting to show only now… I don’t know. And I’m okay with not knowing.
 
We all long to be unarmored, unabashed, truly seen.
 
In 2022 it is hard to be online.
It is also hard to be in the real world.
We might be “okay” and nothing might be “wrong,” but I challenge you to find anyone fully “okay” as we march around this confused and aching planet.
 
So here I am, lifting up my weary, dirt-soaked eyes to stare into yours say “if you are face down in the middle of the road—you’re not alone. I’m okay-but-not-okay TOO. And I struggle to share just how or why. And now of you’ll excuse me I have more dirt to eat…”
 
I see you.
All my love, from my dirt pile to yours,
 
Al