My Christmas Haul 😝

It's very different than what you may see on TikTok.

My girls really wanted a nice family portrait but I was really running on empty energetically. Genius photographer Spencer Heyfron pulled a rabbit out of a hat!

Hey!

First of all, I can’t even wish you a happy holiday without first just saying, Hi! I missed you. I didn’t know I needed time to recover until the moment I realized I needed time to recover and in that moment, I just pulled the cord, jumped out (and off social media) and took care of myself. You sensed it and so beautifully gave me that space. Thank you, dear reader.

Second, Happy Holidays from my family to yours. And since we are family anyway, let me tell you this: I got what I wanted for Christmas! I am officially cancer-free. I won’t bore you with all the details. It was a rough summer and I’m still smoothing out the edges. I will be just fine but you can imagine how I “do” recovery. I do recovery like the Kardashian’s do Christmas. I take it really seriously. I take it the way I wish I’d been taught to take it. The way I wish we’d all been taught to take it. You know what I mean, right? You’d fall and scrape your knee as a little kid and someone would say, “You’re okay! Yay!” and clap or some other positive phrase intended to distract you from the pain yet is totally not related to your current experience: The beginning of gas lighting. Child you is thinking, No - actually I’m not alright but most of us kind of quickly recover with a baffled smile on our faces. And eventually we become older kids who hold the hell of middle school inside and just grow tougher because of it. Tough is good, isn’t it? Our culture certainly thinks so! (Spoiler alert, I don’t think tough and resilient should be considered synonyms - our emotional lives require more nuance.) And then we become tough young adults who deal with crazy shit in college that really isn’t right. (I remember a friend once saying about some guys in our crowd, “They were kinda rapey, right?”) 🤷🏻‍♀️ And then, of course, we are the grown ups at work, pulling late hours, killing it while slowly killing ourselves, still giving that forced smile to Mommy. Look Mom, I’m okay! Yay!

But are you really?

As my 15 year-old would say with an eye roll, “Debatable.”

Luckily, today I do better for myself. When I felt badly over the summer, I didn’t create a Cancer Superhero alter ego. I slept. And wasn’t looking to check anyone else’s opinion of how I’m doing which is why I went off social media. (Well, I DO still have a TikTok account because I also have a teen daughter who keeps starting new accounts to dodge me.)

My history with social media began in 2019 because I was curious about an IG account called Thank You Atoosa. There, I met the brilliant Casey Lewis, a former reader, now Gen Z guru. Casey graciously helped me figure out how to set up my IG and I seriously hope she kept records of the embarrassingly specific questions I would pepper her with (Exhibit A - see video below with the volume on) as I was trying to set up my Instagram, and then this Substack. She may have been a CG!/Seventeen reader in the aughts, but today, I buy my own girls whatever she tells me to on her Substack. It has been a full-circle moment. I love being her reader.

What, it turns out, I don’t love? Social Media.

It started out innocently enough. A new portal to the world. I couldn’t help but take a peek and then also give peeks of my life. Simple. Most of you do some version of that. No biggie.

But when I went off to give myself a true rest while I was going through radiation, I noticed that every time I sat on the toilet (I drink 100 ounces of water a day, Sis, so that’s a lot of bathroom time!), I would reflexively try to click on my (now non-existent) IG icon. It was an impulse that took maybe a month to kick. TBH, I didn’t like the feeling of being so…conditioned, like a robot. But most importantly, I found so much more time in my day. Time for rest when I needed it. But also time for all the things you and I are always running out of time to do. I literally FOUND TIME. I mean…do I need to say more? And I didn’t lose anything - except for extra useless mental chatter that I certainly didn’t need. It’s been a win win scenario for me. No downside, outside of the initial withdrawal.

You might wonder, why go off social media altogether? Just stop posting! Fair. The real time suck for me was looking at other people’s posts. And no matter how deep into the folders of my phone I stuck that IG App, I was magnetized to check it. Meta is so good at what they do! I can honestly say nothing I’ve seen on social has deeply changed my life for the better, but not having those IG or FB log in credentials has vastly improved my life. It’s given me great solace during a challenging year.

So that’s all she wrote. My Christmas haul is my health, more time, less chatter. I continue to be so grateful for my wonderful children (and yes! My partner, Anthony who makes everything sweeter - I’m going to attach a video of my last day of radiation and Anthony’s reaction to my ringing the bell so you can see his character - and unfortunately, MINE as I tease him for crying! Yes, I’m still a work in progress.). If I was feeling better at the time, I would have shared it with you in real time, so please think of this as an old-fashioned Christmas letter.

To that end, I wanted to tell you that your old friend is good. I’m still learning and growing…still overthinking and analyzing everything…just not sharing on social. Instead, I’m sitting with and considering the best way TO share it and to be in community as authentically as possible. In this moment, I rest in a place I’m very familiar with: The Great I Don’t Know. What I DO know is that I appreciate you and I wish you a really beautiful 2024 full of extra time. a slower pace and really special people you can share that time and pace with. I love you, my dear friend. I know the world feels very frightening at times, I hope there are places of solace you can carve out for yourself. Even if I don’t send out a letter, I’m still here 24/7, as always, at atoosa@atoosa.com.

xo atoosa