On nearly going back to Twitter

I nearly went back on Twitter the other day. Not once, but several times. One of my very lovely relatives sent me a link to a tweet about Brexit on a WhatsApp message, so I found myself walking around in there and taking a look at everything for a little while. It was very tempting. I got as far as deciding on a new Twitter name and even thinking about what my profile picture would look like. But, no.

For all the witty commentary, not much had changed. I was in there for what, five minutes, and still left feeling shaky and more anxious than when I went in. If Twitter had been a door, I would have slammed it shut and run round the house closing all the curtains.

This came up in conversation with some writer-acquaintances recently.

‘I didn’t think I’d seen you around much,’ said one.

‘I left in April,’ I said.

‘You look well on it,’ said the other.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I am well on it.’

‘Have you missed Brexit?’

‘I find it pretty hard to avoid, wherever I am,’ I said.

’What have you done instead?’ said the other.

’Taken up the ukulele. Badly. But I do love it. I’m already out of practice.’

I wanted to say much more, about how writing seems to be coming back to me. And silence (are they the same thing?). About my preference for reading news in paper form articles, especially the Sundays, how I store up the ranty opinion pieces on Pocket for one long splurge on the weekend. About how my conversations are different. I leave my phone in one place when I come home in the evening, I wanted to say. I wanted to say how many novels I have read. But I said none of it. My friend was telling me a very funny story about a cat-meme she had contributed to. Again, the same longing to be part of it washed over me. Then I thought: no.