Looks Can be Deceiving in the Best Way
Consider the stoat: it is extremely cute and it will also rip your throat out.
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Lately I’ve wanted to disappear, all because I don’t have the guts to tell a fancy nutritionist that I want to end our sessions. I hired her in a fit of delusion, but by the third session I knew the fourth session would be spent selling me another set of sessions, and so forth and so on for the rest of time.
I no longer trusted her because when I told her I couldn’t take 39485939593 supplements in one day, or drink a special tea 959395495 times in one day, instead of trying to find a program that worked with my schedule, she just smirked and said “you have to find time to prioritize your health, Adeline.”
This enraged me. We were on FaceTime, and she was sitting outside by her pool — compliments of a husband who worked full time — when she said it, blissfully unaware that people (like me) work, sometimes eleven hours at once. She was also blissfully unaware of what it’s like to take care of aging parents, or of any other hardship. In her case, looks are not deceiving. She has very clear skin and very bright eyes, and looks like exactly who she is: someone who has it easy.
To be fair, I didn’t entirely ghost her. I sent her message through a special app she uses to communicate, saying that we would have to postpone our last session. I thought she would leave me alone after that, but a few days later a notification popped up that she had replied. I froze. Why doesn’t she know that “let’s postpone our next session” really means that we are actually done with all the sessions?
Rather that open up the message and respond like a big girl, I decided the only logical thing to do was to disappear. This essentially meant getting off Instagram where we follow each other. That’s it, I thought, I’ll just stop posting entirely and she’ll think I died or something.
So that’s what I did. My profile is still up, flapping in the wind, but I’ve stopped posting. I somehow think this is an elegant way to avoid a minor conflict.
Elegant or not, I also liked the idea of leaving for other reasons, because over the years Instagram and I have had a complicated relationship. I’ve been body-shamed, which…
