That Time My BFF And I Disconnected From The Internet
I’m the type to check email, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram when sitting on the toilet or trying to procrastinate from doing work. I wouldn’t call myself a social media addict per se — I just have to take a professional approach to social media. Maintaining a healthy online presence is part of the job of a starving blogger/journalist/content creator/digital marketer.
My best friend Ginny has chosen a similar career path and has even grown a loyal following on Instagram — she’s one of those amateur selfie queens. As you can imagine, our lady dates consist of lots of drunken Snapchats.
One summer weekend, instead of our usual stay-in wine nights, we opted to do something more adventurous — we decided to go kayaking at the local park. It was one of those ridiculously sticky days when I could feel the sunrays penetrating the layer of sunblock on my skin. Perfect day for water sports.
At the park, we rented a two-person kayak. Before launching ourselves into the river, I sent my last tweet, which read something like “Kayaking with Ginny soon *boating emoji*.” I secured both our phones inside a Ziploc bag. Zippppp. I then placed the bag inside lock-in Tupperware container for extra protection from water. Snap. I placed the container inside my drawstring bag. Hwhoop. Our phones were completely protected. And, unintentionally, out of reach.
Then, we launched our kayak into the river and paddled gracefully towards the sun.
Just kidding. Ginny and I tried to synchronize our oars, paddling left then right at the same time, yet we could not go straight. We kept bumping into the river banks and spinning around. There were no currents, rapids or large rocks, which meant little chance of getting stuck or flipping over. But it also meant a 100% chance of looking just plain stupid to the parkgoers walking along the track that followed the river.
It was hot and our feat to become majestic kayakers like Pocahontas was just not happening. “How about I just paddle? Let’s see what happens,” Ginny suggested. I agreed and Ginny took charge. The kayak propelled forward and I felt a soft breeze against my cheek. We progressed through the river passing other kayakers, moving closer to the office building that sat a mile away and could be seen above the trees. When I turned around I saw some ducks swimming over our rippled pathway. The dock became smaller and smaller. The view was gorgeous and I wanted to capture it.
Reaching into my bag, my hand felt the hardness of the Tupperware container and instead I dug deeper to grab the waterproof disposable camera that I bought earlier that day from CVS. I would up the wheel behind the camera, gazed through the viewfinder and click! Out of habit I looked at the camera back where the playback window would usually be. I shrugged and said, “Well, let’s hope I didn’t put my finger on the lens.”
Ginny took a break from paddling. I pulled out two mini bottles of pinot grigio from my bag and handed one to her. I would so take an Instagram pic of this right now, I thought. I imagined how the Instagram photo would look like. I held the pinot grigio bottle in the center with the front of the kayak and the gorgeous landscape in the background. Snap! I took a photo with the disposable camera.
We sipped our wine and sighed. Everything seemed so still now. We were just floating in the middle of the river, away from the other kayakers. “Isn’t it just so quiet?” I asked Ginny.
“Yeah, it’s weird,” she said.
“I mean it’s always quiet in my room when I’m alone in the house, but never this quiet. I always anticipate my phone to ring,” I said. “I don’t even know what time it is.”
“Yeah, I would be all over Snapchat right now,” Ginny replied. I handed Ginny the disposable camera and she tried to take some selfies of us on the kayak. “I think I got it,” Ginny said with hope.
We sipped more wine and talked about how she’s going to be in college forever because she decided to change her major three times and how I’m unemployed and started paying off college loan debt.
An hour later, we returned back to the dock. Everything was slower. We walked slower. We breathed slower. It could have been the wine. But I’ve had a glass of wine over lunch before and never felt this serene. Unsnapping the Tupperware container, I removed our phones from the Ziploc bag. I had one text message from the boyfriend, which read, “Have fun.” I didn’t really miss much.
