The Luxury of Not Being Perceived

The first thing I did after a tragic life event was delete Instagram.

Not in a blaze of glory. Not with a carefully kerned Notes-app manifesto about boundaries and healing. I just pressed down on the app until it started shaking like it knew it was guilty, and I removed it from my phone.

Grief has a way of clarifying your audience. When something breaks your heart open, you become acutely aware of who is standing outside with binoculars. The no-contact family members who treat my life like a syndicated series. The high school and college girls who once borrowed my clothes and now lurk my milestones, no peep for years. The ex coworkers who never quite liked me but love a front row seat to the plot. Ex-besties, who I am sure refresh my existence online like their life depends on it (this is not speculation....I know).

I could not stomach the idea of them witnessing my pain. Not even peripherally. Not even through a sepia toned carousel with a vulnerable caption that says “be gentle with yourself” and racks up 312 views from people who have not texted me since 2016.

There is something grotesque about people who would not protect you getting to consume you unprotected.

I did share it. Just not widely. I posted to my Close Friends story.

That small, almost tender, green circle. A handful of people I do not even see that often, but who feel safe in a way that is hard to explain. Not because we are inseparable, but because they are not spectators. They are not collecting data. They are not waiting for the fall. They are just… kind.

It felt right. Intimate but not theatrical. Witnessed but not displayed.

The rest of the internet did not need to know.

So I deleted the apps. No Instagram. No TikTok. I did not announce a hiatus. I did not threaten a comeback. I simply vanished from the grid like a minor character written off mid season.

The silence was deafening at first.

My thumb kept searching for the app out of muscle memory. I would unlock my phone and stare at the empty space where it used to live. Without the feed, there was no instant mirror. No micro doses of validation. No subtle confirmation that people were still watching.

And that is when it hit me. I have been performing for an audience I would not invite to dinner.

Why should my estranged relatives have access to my grief when they do not have access to my joy? Why should old classmates get to measure my heartbreak against their own tidy narratives? Why should shitty people get even a pixel of my vulnerability?

Absolutely not.

Today I woke up and instead of scrolling, I opened a self help workbook. I answered questions in longhand like an earnest graduate student of my own psyche. No one was going to screenshot it. No one was going to comment “so proud of you.” It was just me, interrogating myself gently.

I went to the gym.

Forty five minutes on the stairstepper. Thirty on the treadmill. Twenty in the sauna. The kind of heat that feels biblical. Sweat tracing my spine. No mirror selfie. No “discipline equals results” caption. Just effort. Just breath. Just the private satisfaction of doing something hard without documenting it.

I kept a log of what I ate. Not as punishment. Not as penance. Just as awareness. I want to know myself better than the algorithm does.

Somewhere between the treadmill and the sauna, I had a realization that felt almost embarrassing in its honesty.

I do not want to be an influencer.

I want the texture of that life, sure.

The matching sets. The color coded fridge. The dinner parties with tapered candles and curated playlists and guests who look like they stepped out of a soft focus coming of age film. I want the polish. The cohesion. The aesthetic control.

But I want it in my actual life. In my house. With people who would bring soup without posting about it.

Deleting social media has forced me to ask who I am when no one is watching. When my no-contact family cannot peek in. When old coworkers cannot tally my wins and losses. When the quiet lurkers from college cannot whisper, “I always knew.”

Who am I when the performance ends?

I am someone who experienced something devastating and chose discretion over display.

I am someone who understands that privacy is not secrecy. It is self-respect.

I am someone who can climb a stairstepper for 45 minutes and not require applause, damnit!!

There is still a part of me that fears disappearing. That wonders if absence equals irrelevance. It is difficult to be an artist in a culture that equates visibility with value. But I keep returning to this simple truth:
I would still make music if no one was watching.

I would still write songs in my loft. I would still dance alone in my private dance studio. I would still dress up and do glam for no reason. I would still host the dinner with matching napkins and a perfectly sequenced playlist. I would still want my life to feel cinematic.

The difference now is that the audience is curated.

Tiny. Intentional. Green circled.

Maybe the real luxury is not being perceived by everyone.

Maybe the real power is choosing who gets to see you when you are not polished.

For the first time in a long time, my life feels less like a broadcast and more like a novel.

And I finally get to decide who is allowed to read it.

Until next time,
<3
Janet