by Jessi Kirby
Things that she’d actually gone out and done.
I tell her I wish I’d been with her. That I wish I’d never gotten so sucked into my stupid fake life that I stopped living a real one. I tell her I’m sorry. So sorry. That maybe if I hadn’t completely lost myself, I would’ve been with her on all these adventures.
Or on that hike.
That maybe then she wouldn’t have taken that one wrong step. And maybe my aunt wouldn’t have had to get up in front of hundreds of people at the memorial and tell them that Bri had felt no pain when she fell. That she’d just been out on the trail, living the life she loved one moment, and gone the next.
I tell her I don’t love my life at all. But I want to start. I want so badly to do something that is real. That means something. I want to feel a connection—to life, and the world, and to other people.
I want to feel something besides self-loathing.
At the end of it, when I run out of tears and confessions, I promise her I will. I will change. I will do something different. It’s then that I look directly into the camera and say with great resolve: “This is why I’m quitting social media. To stop living in a screen and start living an actual life.”
And then I’d posted it on my YouTube channel.
The irony of this is not lost on me.
But I’d wanted to do something to make it more real. Maybe to hold myself to my promise. To give my words weight.
So I’d put it out there, for anyone to see.
And now seven hundred and eighty thousand people have.
Notifications ping continuously from all of my social media accounts. Texts roll in from numbers I don’t recognize.
The views tick up and up.
I am paralyzed. Unable to stop the deluge happening right in front of me. Terrified to see what people are going to say.
But I have to know. I have to see what they’re saying. I take a deep breath and scroll down through the comments:
Holy shit, girl. Dropping some truth.
This made me cry. I’m 20yrs old and literally everything she said hit me hard.
So wait a second . . . you’re gonna USE social media to QUIT social media???
My heart goes out to you for the loss of your cousin. Good luck with your new life! I hope you find happiness.
I can’t anymore with these stupid white girl 1st world problems. Seriously, you’re complaining about your life “looking” too perfect? You need to step out of your tiny fucking bubble.
Thanks for showing your insights, Mari. You’re inspiring to so many of us. Keep your head up!
How do none of you see that she’s just doing this for attention? This girl is a total fake.
Even her “boyfriend” is fake. Did you see what he just posted?
This is why I don’t put my personal shit online.
Please. Go live your life where none of us have to hear from you ever again, you stupid bitch. No one cares about you or your cousin or your fake ass life.
Get a fucking life, hypocrite. Or better yet, take your own.
I stop reading. Contemplate the option for a moment.
I honestly don’t know what other choices I have right now.
I can’t take it back. Even with the positive comments mixed in, I wish, so hard, that I could undo that one click that put my most private, vulnerable thoughts out there for anyone to see.
But I know I can’t.
Even if I took the video down, it’s already been mirrored and posted all over the place. Memes of me crying into the camera already exist. Links have already been posted to a few online news stories with varying headlines: Instagram Star Quits, Saying Social Media Is Not “Real Life”; Insta-famous Teen Exits the Internet in a Teary Confessional—But Not Before Posting a Viral Video.
The links go on, as do the comments about them. There are even death threats.
This can’t be real. It feels like I’m watching my life from a distance, speeding ahead, completely out of control, and I can’t do anything to stop it. I don’t understand why this is happening. I don’t know why so many people care, or have an opinion about it, or me, and feelings I never should’ve shared. Why they feel like they can say all these horrible things. I don’t know why I care so much that they do. Most of them are complete strangers, taking shots at me from behind the safety of their screens. But some of them . . . Some of them are people I know in real life. People who I went to school with, who are happy to have one more reason to hate me. Even Ian has joined the mob. His post this morning is a screen grab of me, puffy-eyed, red-faced, midsob with the caption that reads:
How’s this for real? Glad this shit’s over.
It already has over five thousand likes and hundreds of comments with people saying even worse things about me than they did on my video. No one calls him out for being a part of it. They save the blame for me, and offer to take my place at the same time.
I want to stay in the cocoon of my own bed and not come out until this nightmare is over, but I can’t just sit here and let it keep happening.
I get my laptop and take the video down first. And then my YouTube channel. Then I move on to my Instagram account—thousands of pictures and videos that I poured years of my life into. I wipe them out with one click and then another. Paid posts that made me money and earned me free products—I delete them, and the chance that any of those companies will do business with me ever again. This is my one swipe at Ian. We were a package deal on many of these because of our combined popularity.
Once everything is gone, I close my eyes, take a breath, and let it out as slowly as I can, trying to figure out what to do next.
On the bed, my phone chimes with a text. I open one eye to see who it’s from.
My mom.
I sit there a moment, frozen.
Until right this moment, I didn’t realize that my mom seeing that video would be a million times worse than any stranger seeing it. I didn’t even think about the possibility. She checks up on my social media accounts from time to time, lets me know if she thinks an outfit might be too much, but for the most part, she tries to trust me and let me have a certain level of independence with my online life.
But this video is different. It’s more than I’ve ever told her—more than I’d ever want her to know, but it’s too late now.
I take a breath, reach for the phone, and tap the message bubble to read her text:
Good morning, sweet girl! I hope you had a good day yesterday. I tried to call, but reception is still terrible up here. Aunt Erin is doing better today, and we’re going to hike to the falls this morning, so I’ll be here for one more night as long as you’re okay down there. Sound good?
I exhale and thank the mountains around my aunt’s house for the bad service that apparently hasn’t gotten any better since I’ve been there. I type back:
Sounds good. Glad to hear Aunt Erin is doing better. I’m fine here. Spending my first day as an adult lounging by the pool, haha.
I add the laughing-crying emoji, then hit the arrow to Send, and watch the bubble as she types her response.
Hmm . . . not sure that qualifies as adulting, but enjoy it while you still can! I’ll call tomorrow when I’m on the road. Love you.
Love you too.
I set the phone back down on the bed and breathe a sigh of relief. At least this gives me enough time to try to do some damage control and figure out what to say to her when she gets home and we actually have to talk face-to-face.
I lie back on my bed and stare up at the ceiling. Regret hangs heavy and invisible over me as I replay my words, meant for my cousin, twisted by other people and quoted back to me over memes of me sobbing about my life and how pathetic it is. Words that came from my heart and felt true when I said them, but seem trite now. Cheapened by other people’s opinions of them.
I hate that I put this part of myself out there for anyone to hear and comment on. But a piece of me feels a tiny measure of relief too. I wanted to cut ties with everything that
felt false. Really, I wanted an escape from the life I created for myself.
But now that I’m free, I don’t know what comes next.
What Living Looks Like
IN THE KITCHEN, I make a smoothie. Normally, I would take so long to set up a photo of it and then get it posted, that it would melt and I would dump it down the sink.
Today I sit at the kitchen island and sip it.
Through the sliding glass door that opens to the backyard, I can see the sun shining down on our pool, complete with its palm tree reflections, and in my head, I compose the perfect bikini selfie. I think of different angles and poses that would showcase the best of me while still being somewhat original. To offset the idea that the post was only about my body in a bikini, I would try to find a good quote to use as a caption. Something that would sound like I was spending my first day of being eighteen contemplating life’s big questions by the pool. All of that together would create the kind of picture sure to draw comments about what a great body and life I have, while highlighting how deeply spiritual I am at the same time. A perfectly balanced representation of my brand.
For a second, I crave that rush of adoration. The red hearts of approval, and the flattering comments. But then I remember how empty it all felt—especially now—in comparison with the things I read on Bri’s page last night. I hadn’t bothered looking at her Facebook page, or even her Insta feed for the last few years because I knew it would make me sad. And when she died, I couldn’t do it then either. I was too afraid to see the life she’d been living before it happened.
But now, today, I want to.
I rinse my smoothie glass in the sink, then go back up to my room, where my laptop lies closed on my bed. When I sit down and open it, my first impulse is to check on what people are saying about me. I stop and remind myself that it’s out of my control, and that the only thing that isn’t is what I do now. So what I do is open up Bri’s Facebook page, and begin scrolling.
I scroll down past all of the birthday wishes, through the many, many pictures of her memorial. I want to find her, and the things she was doing and posting about. But I am stopped before I can get there by all of the photos other people have posted of her, and the kind, beautiful things they have to say.
In one photo, she stands in her hiking gear next to another girl hiker. The post reads:
So heartbroken to hear this news. I met you on one of your training hikes for the JMT. I was exhausted and out of water, so you filled my bottle from your own, then turned around and hiked back with me until we reached the trailhead. I can’t tell you how much that small kindness meant, then and now. I will always pay it forward, I promise you.
Another post, written in a different language, shows her standing next to a guy our age, somewhere in Europe, holding a cardboard sign. I hit translate:
A few months ago I gave you a ride to see your relatives. Right now I have never seen a girl so brave, cheerful, and full of energy like you! I want to remember you always with the smile you had on your face.
The next one is from a woman in Italy:
Dear Bri, you are so missed, but we will never forget the gifts you’ve left us with. You taught us what living looks like. And loving too. With the heart first, always.
I scroll and scroll, through posts of the mountains of California, all the way up to Canada, then to the European peaks and oceans and squares of foreign towns. I study every photo, read every post. And though the people and places are all so different, there are two things that remain the same in each shot—Bri’s open, joyful smile, and the way she seems to have touched everyone she met in a meaningful, inspiring way.
I go backward in time, closer and closer to when Bri was still alive, now more curious than ever about what she herself had posted, and that’s when I find the picture I know—of her, standing atop the mountain, arms raised high. Her last post.
Off the list. ✓
Goose bumps rise on my arms. I wonder how many other things were on her list.
The sound of the doorbell yanks me back to here, now. I look out my window in time to see the UPS driver get in his truck and pull away from the curb in front of our house. When it disappears down the street, and everything goes still again, I realize I’ve been sitting here with my computer for hours. I still have so much more to read and go back through, but I’m thirsty, and need to get up and move.
Downstairs, I fill a glass of water and grab an apple from the bowl on the counter. On my way back upstairs, I pass by the front door, then stop, remembering the UPS truck. I peer out the peephole in the door, but I don’t see anything. Beyond the doorstep, the street is empty and the sky is blue and cloudless. Slowly, I open the door. And sitting there right in front of it is a very large box, addressed to me.
The return address puts a lump in my throat.
I stare down at my aunt’s name, and the address that immediately conjures the image of her cabin in the Sierras, tucked in its ring of mountains, the meadow in front thick with tall grasses and wildflowers, the trampoline nestled within them.
Bri and me, lying there on our backs, watching the thunderheads build and gather on summer afternoons.
I sink down, right there on the front step that’s warm from the sun, next to the box.
My birthday present.
Even after we stopped celebrating our birthdays together, my aunt Erin never forgot my birthday. Of course not, since it was Bri’s too. Every year, a package would arrive from her. And every year it was something the old me would’ve liked, something I wasn’t interested in anymore—a leather-bound blank journal, a set of paints and brushes, a book about the constellations. They were all whispers of things I’d loved in my childhood, things I’d long since outgrown, and they always went straight into the back of my closet where they were quickly forgotten.
I sit there next to the box that is much larger than anything she’s sent before, scared of what it might contain. Certain that it will have something to do with Bri for this, what should’ve been our eighteenth birthday. I can’t decide if I want there to be something of hers in this box or not.
I stare at it, like if I do long enough, I’ll be able to see through it to what’s inside and decide if I want to open it. Birds chirp from the surrounding trees. A car passes by on the street in front of the yard. A slight breeze carries the smell of fresh-cut grass and hint of the nearby beach. Life goes on all around me like it doesn’t realize how badly I’ve screwed it up, or that Bri is gone, or that there are some things, like this box sitting on my front step, that are too much for a person to handle.
All of a sudden, I feel very tired. I close my eyes to shut it all out, but for the first time since I’ve stepped outside, I notice the warmth of the sun on my face. I breathe, in and out, I don’t know how many times. Enough to take the edge off the panicky feeling in my chest. And when I open my eyes, the box sits there in the sunlight, waiting for me to do something.
It’s awkward to carry, and much heavier than I expect it to be. I have to catch my breath after I get it into the living room. I grab a pair of scissors from the kitchen, and pause in front of the box. Then, with a deep breath, I slice through the packing tape and lift the flaps open, one by one.
Sitting on top of a layer of bubble wrap is an envelope with my name on it.
I swallow, and take another deep breath as I pick it up. I try to see through the translucent layers of plastic to what’s beneath, but I don’t remove them. Not yet. Aunt Erin wanted me to read this first, that much is obvious. I break the seal on the envelope, take the crisp white stationery out, and begin:
Dear Mari,
I hope this makes it to you in time for your birthday. I can hardly believe that you’re going to be eighteen . . . time goes so fast. Too fast. I wish I could slow it down. Some days, I wish it could go in reverse. There are so many things I would change.
I know that you and Bri weren’t close these last few years, and that’s one of those things I would go back and try to change. Fa
mily is everything, and you two were even more than that. Your shared birthday was a shared piece of heart and soul. You were our twin stars.
Both of your lights still shine, so brightly. Bri’s now, from a different place. I feel her shining her love everywhere—in the mountains and the sky, the sunrise and the evening breeze. Nature is where I go when I need to breathe. And nature is where I find her. But a few weeks ago, I was in her room, and I felt her more strongly than I have since she passed.
As you probably know, she was planning to hike the John Muir Trail this summer to celebrate her birthday—your birthday too. She’d spent months researching and planning and training for it. Every penny she earned went toward buying the equipment she was going to need for her trip.
I was sorting through it all, wondering what to do with it, when I knew—out of nowhere—that you should have these things. I know it sounds strange, but I am learning to trust these moments. I also know that your life is so different than Bri’s was, but I want you to have these things, and I believe in my heart that she does too.
It makes sense to me, in a way that is very Bri.
You were never far from her thoughts. And though she was planning this as a solo hike, I know she never let go of the idea that you might join her—your name was on the wilderness permit months ago, when she applied.
Your life has taken you in such wonderful and exciting directions, and I have no doubt that there are big things in store for you and your future. Maybe one day that will include a journey like the one Bri had planned. I hope so. I love the thought of her things making their way over those many miles one day, even if she can’t. I know she would love that, so it brings my heart peace to pass these things along to you on her behalf.
Happy birthday. We love you and are so proud of the beautiful young woman you have become.
Love always,
Aunt Erin
I sit there a moment, stunned. In total disbelief that after all these years and all that distance, Bri still thought of me. That she still put my name on the permit. That my aunt would send me her things, believing that I would ever deserve to have them.
