What do we lose when we share?

The regret of going too far.

Last week’s essay focused on my relationship with social media. I briefly touched on what it’s like to share my life, and I’m continuing to explore the topic. Thank you, as always, for reading — and feel free to subscribe if any of it resonates. <3

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We were teenagers. The details of our lives were fodder for our friends and followers on Xanga, Tumblr, LiveJournal — what we ate, which classes were too hard, the angst of a forbidden crush. Our digital cameras accompanied us on nights out; after, we'd upload dozens of pictures to a Facebook album aptly titled SPRING BREAK <3. The sharing is constant, gratuitous, and over-the-top. It is a silly, innocent, lovely time. 

Some of us outgrew it. Others did not.

If something good happens to me, I tell five people in the time it takes to process the news. If something terrible happens, you can multiply that number by three. I found out I was pregnant with my son on a Tuesday morning. Ten people knew before Wednesday, and I'm not including my husband in that number. Why am I like this? I've probed and probed and can't find an answer. I want to be coy! It'd be nice to just shut up sometimes. Keep people guessing. And yet, I am incapable.

And that's just what goes down in the group chats. Online, I can't stop. (Including…this essay! I am nothing if not self-aware.) We all define oversharing differently. For some, hard-launching a relationship or posting about a vacation may be too much. For me? The boundary is more difficult to find. Oversharing on the Internet is a bit of an art form if you ask me. To do it right, you don't broadcast every single thought — that's unsustainable. But you can be uninhibited, free to talk about anything you'd like, offering takes on topics people usually shy away from. If you're having a horrible day, you can instantly broadcast a play-by-play to everyone you know.

But…why?

This is the question I’d ask my therapist to help me unpack if we didn’t spend our biweekly forty-five minutes on more pressing topics. Do I value connection and making people feel less alone? (Yes.) Is it cathartic and a way for me to cope? (Absolutely.) Does the attention feel good? (Well, duh.) Is it really worth it, though?

One day last summer, a stranger approaches as I leave a doctor’s appointment. I stop when I see her heading my way, unsure whether she has me confused for someone else. Then, she asks if I'm Ayana. I nod, confused. The woman thanks me for telling the world about my miscarriage. She's followed me for some time, she says. The moment is beautiful, tender, and surprising — I rarely, if ever, get stopped in public — but part of me that panics in the first few seconds. How does she know this about me? Oh. Right.

And there's the rub. You can give everyone in the world a piece of you, a sliver of your story, and it is wonderful and redemptive and all the things it should be. But you can't ever get it back, so if you hand out something you later decide you'd rather keep yourself, too bad. I am okay with ninety percent of what I've shared on the Internet, but the ten percent sometimes keeps me up at night. Sure, I could archive the blog posts and ask the millennial women's publications to take down the hot takes I doled out in my early 20s, but it's all already out there, and it feels pointless to tackle what feels impossible.

Here's the thing: you're acquainted with Past You and have an idea of what Future You might want. But it's just that — an idea. When deciding what to share and how to say it, you can only wager that you'll one day look back without regret. The balance is precarious. It gets easier as you get older, I think (hope?). But the tension is still there, and it’s not easy to resolve.

There’s an obvious solution if you’re worried like I am. Just stop sharing at all. Make your accounts private! Hell, delete them all! Stop pouring out your heart on Substack! And yes, this may work for some people, but I’ve tried, and I can’t. Still, it does feel absurd sometimes. If I become acquainted with a stranger, I’ll wait a long, long time before divulging the traumatic things I’ve lived. But if they want a shortcut, they could just follow me on Instagram. It’s all there.

Can you tell I’m conflicted? I genuinely enjoy what I do, but it exhausts me sometimes. Mainly when I cross that invisible line that separates Things I Want People to Know from Things I Will One Day Regret Divulging. I’ve found one compromise. I don’t share the bad things till I’ve had a chance to process them — with myself, loved ones, and maybe even my therapist. I don’t always stick to the rule (like the essay I wrote days after losing Luna), but it’s helped me find a limit.

So what's the verdict? I'm currently writing a memoir, and it's the most rewarding work of my life. I'm so excited to put it out in the world next year. So, it's safe to say the sharing will continue. But maybe I'll start to slow down, stopping to check in with myself before I post that juicy Instagram story. Maybe.