THE MOODY MAVEN

I Saw My Ghost in The Machine

It makes me smile, it makes me blush, it makes me wistful, and SHE is a bitch

Do you feel about seeing your name in print the same way I do? Find a Grave image modified in Canva

Shouldn’t a done it. Nope nope. But idyl hands and restless fingers do not always mix well when there is a handy keyboard nearby. So yes, I did it. I logged in and typed my name.

Have you ever googled yourself? Of course you have. We all have!

We’re all there. All of us, to one degree or another, are exposed as much as if we’d forgotten to pull the curtains shut before getting ready for bed.

And I don’t mean just our own social media posts. I mean peeping tom glimpses into who we are from different angles. These can be our own actions to maybe when we got swept up into a social event. Or how others see us, good and yes bad.

I try to minimize my footprint where I can. I’ve been able to do a pretty good job of it, except where I want to be seen. And trust me, it’s a tough tightrope to walk when you try to balance promotion with privacy.

Sometimes it gets harder because someone knows what you are doing and then tries to pour water on your efforts, even if it for no other reason than to be a basic bitch.

I won’t mention HER name here because she’s a bitch and I don’t want to add a line to her google search, even a bad one. SHE posted some stuff about me that I had to request be removed. It was so weird because it wasn’t even exaggerated or tweaked, it was just a bunch of lies.

But seriously, I won’t mention HER. Nope, SHE will not grow from my efforts, not by one single pixel.

In general, the interweb-memory thing is not a sieve or even mildly selective. Just about anything can find its way out there

Not all of it’s weird or embarrassing. And that’s good because it’s not the weird and embarrassing stuff we’re looking for. You want to find that time the cheerleader squad was interviewed on the local news and you’d answered two questions on TV. You want to see the article where they’d announced you won the writing scholarship. Maybe you just want a little atta girl when you need one.

Is it narcissism? Naw, just a bit of pride and conceit. It’s totally okay.

And then amid all the accolades and shout outs, there it is. A grave marker, a tombstone, a moss-covered monster of my own cenotaph, my name deeply carved into the marble and well poised to withstand the elements for a long time to come.

Here lies Aurelia. She was a nice person. Even if SHE said otherwise.