All In All
…I’ve had a good year. According to Facebook, that is. But FB also gives you the option of choosing the status messages you want to display because not all of them will fit into this collage. An interesting exercise in choice. What we want to remember. What we want others to remember about us.
I found myself leaving out a lot of laments about lack of sleep and insomnia; some about being sick (it seems that I announce all my illnesses); messages celebrating or mourning public events like Carol Ann Duffy’s laureateship, Chitre’s death, Bhopal and 26/11; lots and lots of links to books, poems and movies. I tried to make sure the happy news items of the year — my book, my travels, the UV relaunch and the CWIT fellowship to Kent — stayed in. I felt manipulative doing this but remembered that the online persona is frequently manipulative, a careful sorting and choosing of the selves we want to reveal or highlight. Also, like most other FB widgets, this is an exercise in self-indulgence. Tech-savvy nostalgia. If I was sitting on my verandah with a glass of wine and getting soppy about the year, these are the things I’d talk about — the warm stuff, the successes, the interesting and extraordinary.
In a nod to honesty, I left in some messages on insomnia, deadlines and the nitty-gritty of writing. Also, the death of a friend. Because yes, 2009 was about those things as well, and in the daily churn, more about them than about magical mystery tours. Still, all in all, a good year.
