Candour

In October, my parents-in-law visited. They surprised C the evening before his birthday. He had no idea they were flying across the country to spend a week with us. The surprise had taken months of planning. The trip would be their first time in the Yukon, and it was probably the most remote experience they’d ever had. 

Their time with us was special. It was marked by meals together, the first real snowfall of the season, and birthday celebrations. When they returned to Ontario, I realised that I hadn’t shared much of their time with us on social media. While I’d taken some photos, I’d been unusually quiet online. 

I thought about this after they’d left, and I reflected on the ways in which I do share my day-to-day life on social media. I thought about how I decide, either consciously or subconsciously, what to share and what not to share. I considered the responsibility I have to share in an honest and authentic way, and the expectations that come with sharing my life with large numbers of people. 

It feels odd to think of a time that predates social media. When I was about 13, I signed up for MSN messenger. My username was ‘angel_fish55’. It marked my foray into social media. Though sharing didn’t exist then in the way it does now, we teens learned to skillfully decipher “statuses” and profile pictures. The single sentence status updates were often enigmatic, as layered as onions, and I suggest the millennials who grew up puzzling over these mysterious statuses are today’s true crime aficionados and expert websleuths.

One of my early Instagram posts from a trip to Cuba circa 2011.

In grade 11, I heard rumblings of a new and revolutionary (though it was probably referred to as “dope” or “rad” at the time) social media platform: Facebook. And didn’t that change it all! Facebook changed the way we communicated, the way we shared, and the way we obtained our news and information. I remember that a few years after its inception a university professor asked how many of us relied on social media alone for our news. At the time, I still lived with my parents and they had a newspaper delivered each morning, so the number of students who raised their hand shocked me. Now I’m one of those people. Now newspapers are what shock me.

Facebook meant sharing with relatively few limits, or at least that’s what it meant for me. It meant uploading not one photo from a trip, but one hundred. It meant sharing what trivial (or consequential) thought happened to be on one’s mind in that moment. It meant debates, relationship status changes, and feuds visible to all those in your “online world”.  

I deleted my Facebook account just over nine years ago. At the time, a breakup, self-doubt, and insecurity meant that it wasn’t a space that was conducive to my personal growth and, at times, it even seemed detrimental to my sanity. 

The early days of Instagram were characterized by overly edited, heavily saturated, somewhat pixelated photos. Blurred and rounded corners were commonplace. Reels were unfathomable. Stories, even, were futuristic. Instagram has changed profoundly since its early days, and this is arguably what has contributed to its ability to withstand the whims of technology and the Internet.

In the years leading up to my unexpected move north, I spent more and more time on Instagram. I wasn’t sharing so much; I was scrolling. Incessantly. And with that scrolling came comparison, jealousy, and self-loathing. Not to mention a lot of wasted time. Once again I was letting social media get in the way of personal growth.

So, I quit. I deactivated Instagram for a full year. It felt freeing. I was more present and felt more kindly disposed toward myself. And then a year later, coaxed by friends who were curious about life in the north, I started North Phase, and my relationship with social media took a completely different trajectory. The way in which I shared immediately felt more authentic, more genuine, and more me. 

I know that part of the reason I felt that way was because of my social media hiatus, but I wonder if it was also due in part to experiencing new things and knowing literally nothing about this new way of life. I was exploring something new and sharing what I was learning. I had a theme and a specific goal. As time went on, I learned about the confluence of forces that shape ‘sharing’ in a way that aligns with one’s values.

I realised that sharing for me meant sharing an honest account of my day-to-day life in the north. But here’s the thing, social media offers a surface level understanding of those sharing their lives, even those who share a great deal of their lives. When I taught Criminology, we used an iceberg analogy to teach about ‘the dark figure of crime’ (i.e., crime that is not reported and therefore does not become an official crime statistic). The tip of the iceberg represented the crimes that are reported, while the much large portion of the iceberg below the water represents the crimes that are not reported. The same analogy could be used to describe sharing on social media. What I share represents an accurate and honest depiction of my life, but it doesn’t represent my whole life. 

The caption I wrote when I shared about my medical uncertainties.

In large part, I feel confident that what I share provides a good picture of who I truly am. Some part of me, though, wonders where the line falls between sharing too much and sharing too little. For instance, I believe in the importance and power of positivity, but I also believe in the need to acknowledge challenging moments. My rationale for this is that if share only the good, I do both myself and my online community a disservice. As Brianna Pastor says:

“You need both the light and the dark. One does not exist without the other. To sweep your darkness under the rug is to do yourself a great disservice. There is so much there to learn. How can you feel the freedom of the sun when you have not sat for a while under the shade of the trees.” 

Nearly two years ago, I received a phone call from my doctor who informed me that I may have cancer. I was told to rush into Whitehorse immediately for additional testing. After months of appointments online, in Whitehorse, and in Vancouver, I received a diagnosis: myeloproliferative neoplasm. The process was incredibly stressful. I was in limbo over Christmas, wondering if death was imminent. One night I had intended to cook a pork chop in the Instant Pot. My mind was far, far from our kitchen, focussed on my deathbed, and the fact that I would never see C or my family again, that I would be gone, erased, obliterated. I was spiralling to such an extent that I hadn’t even realised that I didn’t put the inner pot into the Instant Pot. The pork chop was “cooking” on nothing.

The day of my bone marrow biopsy.

While I went through this agonizing period of waiting, I shared small snippets of information online regarding trips to town for appointments. It was so vague that one of C’s friends wondered if we might be expecting a baby. Once I’d had my first appointment with a hematologist, I felt confident sharing more online. Truthfully, I hadn’t known what to share before that. 

This aspect of my life is something I’ve shared with the North Phase community, but is not something I want to focus on. It, like periods of sadness, or moments of self-doubt, is part of me, but it’s a small part. It doesn’t define me. 

When I think back to my experience on Facebook – the sharing of hundreds of photos, constant status updates, and so on – I’m struck by the ways my sharing has changed. It’s honest but guarded. Forthright with a foundation of firm boundaries. My intention is to share with openness and love, to build and foster a community, to connect beyond the realms of the online world, and because of this I consider carefully what I share and how I share it.