“Not waving but drowning”

or How I Accidentally Left Twitter

I have started a lot of texts and emails recently with the words “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch” or the much, much worse “I’m sorry I have been avoiding contact with you”.
I am not proud of myself.

Twitter was always for me the antidote to something, whether that something can be diagnosed as loneliness, shyness or just general social ineptitude. Were the world to operate with its proper proportions Twitter should always have been the place of last resort, after real friends and acquaintances.  The trouble was when it became the place of first resort for me.  It was easier when waking in the middle of the night to find someone to tweet with than it was to face why it was I was waking in the middle of the night.

And then there was the over-sharing. You know it’s bad when kindly souls ask whether you should really be telling such things to virtual (in every sense of the word) strangers. I am grateful to them.

In danger of having a very public meltdown, I suspended my twitter account for the allowed 30 days.  After 30 days I went back in and backed-up my tweets on the basis that they are the closest thing to a journal I have had for the last few years and I didn’t want to lose that.  I then suspended my account for another 30 days, or so I thought.

Long story short: after 30 days I tried to log back in to reactivate my account and it had gone. Taking this as a “sign” I took the time to try to get my head in order.

This is a short explanation for the people asking where I’ve been.  It is also my opportunity to say thank you to the people who have kept faith with me by extending their friendship into real life, or by playing Words with Friends with me.  The latter is an underestimated way of keeping if not a whole foot in the virtual world, then at least a little toe.

That is all. Thank you.






From the poem by Stevie Smith.