It’s weird as fuck not posting on social media. It made me realize how frequently I posted. I am still being productive. I was wondering if not posting on social media would make me less inclined to keep up with life. Like, no validation means no need to do my stuff. But no, I am still working on projects and work stuff and doing my laundry and later today I think I’m going to take some edibles and clean my home. I’m writing my script, doing creative work. Even more productive because I’m not doomscrolling. It’s really nice.

I am not posting on Instagram either because there’s also stressful bullshit there too. So I’m not posting the pics I am taking. It’s different just taking pics for me. I’ve been taking photos of my face recently, closeups anyway. I am noticing more and more terminal beard hairs, and the peach fuzz I have is darkening. Not totally uniformly, some are more advanced than others. But I was not sure I would get a beard. I had a dream I had a big blonde beard once, before I transitioned. Which makes sense because the hair is blonde before it darkens. But I am getting dark brown hairs. It’s amazing. It’s been coming so slow. I was worried I would just never get a beard and it’s one of the things that makes me feel anxiety in men’s spaces, not having a beard. There’s other men who don’t have beards, but generally there’s just so many men with facial hair and I think they look so sexy and I really didn’t want to always be on the outside of that. My Dad DOES have a beard, so it’s logical that I will get one. But I wasn’t sure. My maternal Cree Grandpa had barely any facial hair. But my maternal Grandma was Scottish and Scottish men have giant beards. Or they can I mean.

So the photos I’ve been taking have been these awkward closeups of my beard coming in. My Dad did warn me that it took him a while before he could grow a full beard. And yeah, I’m at least four years into testosterone, and some guys have facial hair so early on. Not me, it’s slow poke time here. But it’s coming! I’ve no idea what it will look like when I have my beard. I can see how my Dad’s facial hair is patterned and I think it would look nice on me. But it’s going to be a while before I see myself fully formed.

I was listening to my old voice a while ago and it’s weird, I really don’t identify with that voice at all anymore. My current voice is so much deeper and richer and I guess I have finally settled into knowing that’s what I sound like.

I’m not thinking too heavily on it, but I am wondering if my relationship to social media will change in October when I let myself go back on it. IF I go back on it. Breaking the habit seemed so extreme before, but I actually don’t miss it a lot. Not as much as I thought I would. I do know I’m out of the loop now. I don’t know who’s died recently, who had a birthday, what events are coming up, any current outrage. I still go on Reddit. And Youtube. But those are really the only places I am plugged in now.

I haven’t seen my therapist since I got off social media, since it hasn’t even been a week yet. But I’m curious how she’s going to respond. Especially considering me complaining about social media driven anxiety and stress has come up so much in our sessions. I told her about my decision to get off of Twitter shortly after Musk bought it because I realized it was propaganda and not a reflection of reality. But Facebook is just as much propaganda. I was telling her more recently how I was noticing all the Russian propaganda. Like, there was a post about Francesca Albanese that was pro-Palestinian, but I spotted ONE Russian word in the middle of the post. Like in Cyrillics and everything. And I put it in Google translate and it was contextually part of the English sentence it was in. But yeah, definitely Russian. And then another post I saw that was about Israel and it was from a page with a full on Russian name. So what the hell? I know Russia is putting out propaganda, but I guess I am just getting better at spotting it. I was also realizing how there’s so much stuff in my feed about Israel and Palestine, but except for what Ukrainian friends post, absolutely nothing about Ukraine and Russia. I don’t get the Alberta separatist stuff in my feed much, but I know Russia is pushing a lot of that too. The fact that Zuckerberg thinks it’s fine to take advertising money from Russian propagandists is pretty fucking evil. Trump is working for Russia too though, so honestly that whole country is being dismantled by Russia right now. It feels like a conspiracy theory bringing this stuff up, but also it’s just the most logical explanation.

Anyway! My point is, I would like to have a break from propaganda and just work out my feelings on current events on my own. Even being transgender has basically pushed me off social media because I’m tired of seeing my existence being brought up as a fun debate topic. It’s the same with being Indigenous, but yeah. These spaces aren’t built for people like me. And I would much rather read books to understand more about life.

Right now I am reading The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Leferti. So that’s been a tough read, it’s very sad to read about war and displacement. But I would rather read a book than a slew of fucking Russian bot posts. Omg.

Anyway. That’s what is up right now. I have to do a little more work today. I have estimated myself at about four days away from being done this script, except that a big juicy plot point was introduced that I realize I need to work on more. But if I can finish in four days I can submit my final report and then get my next grant. So I’m writing as fast as I can.

I did a lot of work today already though. I might need a break before I get back to it. But yeah! I’m off social media since Friday and doing a lot better, feeling a lot happier already and it’s only been three days. I don’t check social media as soon as I get up anymore. It’s like breaking the spell. I’m excited to see how things develop over the next three weeks. I’ve decided to stay off until I see my doctor on the 5th so we can talk about how it went. But I did notice that anxious awful feeling is going away. It still comes now and then. But not as frequently.