Unfriend?

I wrote his piece in response to a "prompt" given at a collaborative writing group I attended a couple of sessions of in December.

I’ve friended more than my share on Facebook. When I look at the list, I don’t even remember who some of them are. My practice is to friend them and then unfollow them. I want them there for when I’ve got something to share, such as an announcement for my next theatrical endeavor. Not particularly interested in cat pix, or baby pix, or political postings that I usually agree with, so why should I look at them? Unfollow … but keep as a friend. I know, how would I feel if they do the same to me? I’m sure that many do. Their choice.

Since the election fallout, I’ve actually gone back in and resumed following a good two-thirds of the folks on my friends list … not the ones who I don’t remember knowing. I want to learn how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking … and doing.

The ones I’m now following are in alignment with my thinking. I decided not to follow the very few I may disagree with, friends who might make me angry if I read their posts. They’re working from a different data set and I don’t feel powerful enough to change their minds. And I don’t know that anyone or anything at this time will.

Until they step in the hot heaping pile of shit that they may soon find at their door. Maybe each of us has to step in shit before we get just how much shit is gonna fly.

Or maybe our boyfriend does when he’s picking up the dry cleaning and has an egg thrown at him by some roused rabble racing by in a noisy car absolutely disinterested in dialogue and steps in it retreating from their second pass?

Or maybe our neighbor’s daughter’s school friend steps in it when her mom – who is earning $10/hour, 9 hours a day, 7 days a week providing care for her favorite teacher’s Alzheimer’s-addled mother steps in it at the border wall when she is being sent back to her home country. Who’s gonna wipe Granny’s nasty ass for that kinda money?

Or maybe it’s the nice black kid who delivers prescriptions who falls face down in shit rushing to get diabetes meds to the mother of the kid in the car who threw the egg at our boyfriend?

So instead of actually unfriending anyone on my list, I’m actually checking in on many of them a bit more during this troubled time. Checking in on the ones I think I care about because I want to know if they are being attacked, losing benefits, being deported, losing health care coverage. The ones I’m likely to disagree with; the ones who got us here – for whatever possible good reason – they’re going to have to find their own way through the shit their leaders will deposit.

[Since I wrote this, I’ve reversed course and no longer follow anyone right now. I do check in on people. I’ve also stopped listening to NPR in the morning and when driving and no longer watch television news…. Is it over yet?]