• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

mrssavageangel

First time mother just trying to figure out where to go from here.

Virtual Family

11/02/2014 by MrsSavageAngel Leave a Comment

I don’t have a large extended family. And the family I do have is scattered, fragmented and as generally dysfunctional as most. I don’t think it’s different or special in that way. This weekend my mum was visiting from Devon to celebrate her 60th birthday. I can’t remember how we got onto the subject and maybe it was the passing of such a significant birthday that put her in a reflective mood, but we started talking about ‘the family’ and in particular Cousins.

I have three cousins, all siblings. I was nine when the first was born and in secondary school by the time the third arrived. By then we had also moved away from the Midlands to Devon. Beyond occasional updates from my Nanna, I grew up knowing very little about them. But I don’t feel I suffered because of it. I personally don’t feel there was ever a relationship to be had there. My sister who is closer in age to the oldest cousin may disagree but I’ve never felt I should feel more for my cousins than I did.

Social media can be a blessing and a curse. I’m particularly good (don’t ask me how) at internet research (curse my flitty mind that will jump around a problem rather than focus 😉 ) and talking about la famillia made me curious. What are my cousins doing now? They’re all in their twenties and yeah they’re all on Facebook. Time for a bit of FB stalking! My oldest cousin has changed his surname, which made it harder to find him, but find him I did. It also made me wonder whether he’d actually changed his name or if it was just a FB thing. People do it. Or if he has, why has he? The youngest two are now dancers/performers, which doesn’t really surprise me. It was something they both did religiously as children, so they’re all over the internet, meaning I found out plenty despite their locked FB pages. Then there’s Twitter. The youngest is an avid Tweeter with over 10K tweets. Most of it was normal 21 year old dancer buff, but I also found out some really personal stuff about her life choices.

I started to regret looking. I felt a bit creepy knowing this much about people I only had a passing interest in. Its not even like we were close or played as children. But the youngest looks so much like my sister I couldn’t stop looking in wonder at her pictures. Was she a nice person, was she happy? I surmised that she’s happy she’s in the business she is, but deeply insecure about certain aspects of it. But then this is social media. Can you ever really tell anything about a person and their life from a bunch of tweets?

It also made me think just how much of ourselves we put out there on the internet. Yes we can change our FB setting to Fort Knox level of security, but that means jack if you use Twitter or Instagram or any other myriad of social media thats out there. I rarely use Twitter (just can’t get my head around how negative it can be) but I have other accounts. I write this blog, which is free and open for all the world to see. It’s my choice to write here, and I have to be OK with the audience it could potentially reach. It’s a truth I think we’re all well aware of, but in order to sleep at night we push to the back of our minds. And the saddest thing for me is it’s not the strangers who could be looking at my pages without me knowing that worry me, but those closer to me, like extended family.

I thought about following my cousins on Twitter, or friending them on FB, but I knew I’d just be doing it out of curiosity. And if it bothers me to think they could be looking at my stuff then maybe it’d bother them to know that’d I’d been looking at theirs. Maybe their parents don’t yet know the things I now do. Maybe they don’t want their parents to know. I hope thats not the case. If I can find out this easily, anyone can.

I closed my cousin’s Twitter page and went to check my security settings.

And Google my own name.

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: childhood, cousins, Facebook, Family, social media, Stalking, Twitter

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Follow Me

  • Facebook

Recent Posts

  • North Hayne Farm Cottages – our experiences as an SEND Family
  • One gift – an update…..
  • One gift….
  • Key Stage 2 and the Autism Mama
  • Amsterdam, the perfect city break with children

Instagram

Hanging out in the garden with all my babies 🐰🐰🧒🏼 #thesavagebunnies #LucyandMax #bunnyfurniture #mylittlecutie
Her favourite place to sit. #thesavagebunnies #luc Her favourite place to sit. #thesavagebunnies #lucy
Who knew rabbits love an ice cube on a hot day? To Who knew rabbits love an ice cube on a hot day? Today was brutal for these babies and even though their hutch is in the shade it was still hot hot hot! So I wrapped a sheet of ice cubes in a cloth and it quickly became their new favourite thing. They leant against it, licked it and when I took a cube out for them even nibbled it. Stay cool bunnies! 😎🐰 #thesavagebunnies #lucyandmax #rabbithutch #rabbitsonahotday #ice
Supporting local business George Rain who did a fa Supporting local business George Rain who did a fab job on my rings! 
#Repost @georgerainjewellers with @get_repost
・・・
For your chance to WIN.... 1. Follow @georgerainjewellers
2. Tag your 3 best friends.
3. Share this post!

The Winner will be announced on the first of July. Good luck 🤞🏻 #win #giveaway #competition #prize #contest #diamonds #winner #jewellers #jewelleryprize #diamondnecklace #entertowin #sharetowin #18ctgold #diamondgiveaway #prizedraw #draw #georgerainjewellers #bespokejewellery #haslemere #surrey #surreyjewellers #jewellersofinstagram #jewelleryreward #share #tag #follow #lucky
Oscar’s loving making toilet roll toys for the b Oscar’s loving making toilet roll toys for the bunnies. He’s made so many, the poor things would have no room left if he put them all in, so we’ve had to bag them up to keep ‘for later’. However, they do seem to like the ones he’s given them so far. Lucy is particularly taken with this Octopus! #lucyandmax #thebunnies #thesavagebunnies #toiletrolltoys
My Zoom layout ready for my Recharge meet up #moth My Zoom layout ready for my Recharge meet up #mothers #zoom #additionalneeds #group
He loves you so much @benjimawoo. Hope you have a He loves you so much @benjimawoo. Hope you have a lovely Fathers Day Ben, filled with bunny cuddles, homemade pizza and being a tip top daddy. 🐰🍕🦸🏼‍♂️
Night night from the bunnies 🐰🐰#thesavagebun Night night from the bunnies 🐰🐰#thesavagebunnies #lucyandmax #dayone #nightnight
Meet The Savage’s first ever real pets, Max (san Meet The Savage’s first ever real pets, Max (sandy coloured) and Lucy (grey brown). We’re smitten! #bunny #rabbit #pet #newadditionstothefamily
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Archives

Categories

Copyright © 2022 · Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in