Heart on a Sleeve

For over a year now, there’s been a radio series by a woman who falls in love, marries,

has a baby, then her husband leaves and she’s heart broken. This familiar story we’ve

seen in books, movies, and song lyrics for a long time. Every week she bleeds out

every drop of her inner most feelings. Does she think this will aid some listener about

the pitfalls of life? Let’s remember she’s a journalist, not a psychologist. Am I being

cruel to say it bores me? I remember as a child watching a neighbour packing her

things into a car and asking my mother where she was going. I was told it was private,

none of my business and, “we don’t talk of such things.” It seems that today’s social

media sites are the equivalent to my generations’ locked diary.

We now think its our right to spill out every personal and intimate story to the whole world. I talked to a young local recently who has rid herself of certain websites, realizing she was spending an inordinate amount of time reading what other families were doing with their lives and not spending time with her own. She’s freed herself of that seductive pull that wants us to peak over a neighbour’s fence. Is there more of an interest in these sites because of rural isolation? What did rural folk do before the digital age? They

physically made connections with each other to socialize and communicate.