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On Most Days, I Ache For Something Real

Posted by Lizzie on Tuesday, April 21, 2009
I feel another wave of incoherency coming on. That can't be good for the blog.


The most satisfying thing I've done in months was deactivating my Facebook account.

Yes, it was impulsive. But for whatever reason, it felt right. And I haven't had a millisecond of regret so far.

I'm on a mission to simplify my life. And Facebook was part of the excess junk.

In all honesty, I have no idea why I did it. I tried to explain this to Matt. And I really could only hypothesize and take shots in the dark about the specifics.

I guess I just miss when everything was real. I miss actually staying in touch with people instead of resorting to writing inconsequential things on their walls every now and then. I miss talking to people on the phone. I crave physical memories over digital memories. Talking on the phone has become oddly uncomfortable. And I'm not the only one who avoids it. Since when should having a real conversation, actually having to talk to someone in person (even the people you love the most), be awkward? The fluidity of being real with someone is lost.

When you talk to someone in person or on the phone, it is what it is. What you say can't be taken back. It's not always perfect and you can't go back and make it perfect. But this is why it's real. On Facebook, you can delete a sentence five times and try again. But an audible sentence can never really be taken back because it's already been heard.

I just miss when things meant something. When they were unapologetically representative of life. Like Polaroids. I'm compulsively turning all my favorite digital photos into fake Polaroids to capture that quality.

Polaroids are real moments. You can't stop to delete the bad ones and take the picture over again. It is what it is. And to satisfy the foolish impatience in all of us, they almost still count as instant gratification. How long does one take to develop? Minutes. It's instant physical photography.

The difference is that a Polaroid picture is there. It's tangible. It's in your hands. It's been created. You can't make it go away. It's more significant than the insignificant pixels on a memory card.

You take them. You pass them around. People write things on them. People take them home. They become part of your life instead of part of your computer. And I miss that.

The color is always off. The actual picture itself is bad at least half the time. But somehow that imperfection is more real to me than something that was created by a camera that exists to achieve perfection. With a Polaroid, you get what you get. And the memories are preserved just the same.

Maybe it's true that when a picture is digital, everyone gets a copy. But when a picture is a Polaroid, someone gets to have the picture that was physically there when the memory happened.

Somehow it's more than just a representation.


That whole post was dichotomous on so many levels. Being 21 in general is dichotomous on so many levels. I am 12+ serious contradictions a day.

Can I also say that I love Polaroids for their white borders? And framing the shot in a square instead of a rectangle is bliss.

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1 Comments


polaroids are AMAZING, literally and figuratively

this is a lovely blog

face to face interaction is why I prefer my life slowed down a little

I am in constant fear of my life being reduced to snippets

internet free may yo

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