Ignore My Instagram Pictures. Seriously.

Ignore my Instagram pictures.
Seriously, ignore them.
You already know why: obviously, they won’t tell you who I am.
I try with my iPhone to show you a bit of what I see. I try to type with my thumbs a bit what I feel. But my account is a little like the magazine cutouts we used to decorate our lockers with in middle school: authentic only in that we choose what to slap up there. It’s me, but derivative and aspirational.
So, if you want to know about me, ask me.
Reach out to me.
Ask me about the broken-off pieces of me I leave strewn in my wake. Ask me about how relationships don’t last when you move around this much, and the beauty and pain of that.
Ask me about the occasional crushing loneliness. Ask me how much I miss my family (and my cat).
Ask me what it’s like to navigate this lifestyle with an anxiety disorder and an autoimmune condition. Because even I don’t have a clue how I got through that last flare in the middle of a desert in a foreign country.
Ask me how I do this without a steady paycheck, and I’ll probably point you to the wild and wonderful itinerant nomads who know way more about it than I do, and who taught me everything I know about living on the road.
Ask me about what it’s like to come back home and face the confusion of life’s bureaucratic nuances — what it’s like to explain to the DMV or your health insurance that you live in two states and two countries and no, you don’t have any proof.
Ask me if I would do it all over again.
Ask me how to see sunrise and sunset over the ocean on the same day.
Ask me if you can come next time.
If you want to know anything about me, ignore my pictures. DM me, Facebook message me, text me.
I’m here, I’m a human. Ask me.
