Smaller and Smaller

I've been resisting committing this oft-recurring thought to ethereal memory, but it's so plain, now, there's no point in not: 

I am officially irrelevant.

I mean, how many posts in a row have to go by with no comments before it becomes obvious the readers, the friends, the community have all gone on to greener pastures and left me far, far behind? 

This has been plain for months...years, even, here at the blog.  But I had thought that Facebook had salvaged my connection to the last remnants of my ragtag group of friends from the blogging community.

But, no...  I've become invisible there, too.  If I post a picture, I get some drive-by "likes."  But as far as my political posts go, or posts of my heart, I think I have maxed everyone out.  They will rarely even click through to a blog entry when I post a link.  Nobody wants to know what I think any more.  Or, maybe, they already know what I think, and they just don't care. 

Posting these weak little personal peeve entries here on the blog brings me back to the very earliest days of AOL journal land.  I just wrote...whatever, and was shocked beyond belief when I received a comment--evidence that not only had another human being read what I had written, but that the person had felt enough of a spark of connection to leave feedback.  Those were the days!  Those were the glorious, wondrous, connection-filled days!  Every day was like Christmas!

But, of course, it couldn't last.

"Social media" became a thing so far beyond the concept of that first AOL blogging community that those of us who fondly remember our humble roots are left struggling in the tarpits like floundering brontosaurus (brontosauri?)  There are so many voices out there...SO many.  There's little chance for a socially awkward wannabe journalist to write loud enough to be heard.  There are REAL writers out there, writing stuff that is good and that matters.  And people have REAL friends to be social with online...they don't have to settle for rubbing elbows with interesting fellow pioneers of the ether whom they will never meet. 

I feel like, once, I stumbled upon a thing of rare importance, and for a time, I became important, as part of that thing.  Until it got so big that it overwhelmed me, and  I went back to being insignificant. 

And I'm reduced to watching myself disappear.