Stop living though your lens. The compulsion to document and share everything.
Remember the feeling and not what it looks like.
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Last Friday on the 47th–50th St. Rockefeller Center subway station as I was headed towards the turnstile, my right foot slid on something indistinguishably squishy. I fell hard. Right on my ass. It was like one of those cartoon falls when a character slips on a banana peel and falls backwards, complete with cheeky sound effects and a laugh track if you’re old enough to remember when cartoons had laugh tracks.
What I remember most, however, is that a woman watched me fall and walked right by me without even a glance my way as I struggled to pick myself up. As my kids would say, “RUDE!”
I made my way down to the platform right as a train was pulling in, took a seat, and posted about it on Threads on my ride home. I think I was still shaken by that woman practically stepping over my crumpled body, that I was seeking some sort of consolation from other strangers. Maybe I was also annoyed because I swear I will die on this hill when I say that New Yorkers are really friendly and helpful despite whatever dystopian image conservatives are trying to spin. NYC is a dangerous hellscape, if you weren’t aware, full of criminals and unsavory characters.
Hours later, still sore and tingly and recovering in bed with an ice pack, I kind of regretted posting about the fall on social media and berated myself for being so impulsively needy and attention-seeking. Not only was my fall very public in front of all of New York to see, but I was broadcasting it further to more people who wasn’t even there to witness it in the first place (yes, I realize the irony of writing about this here).