Social Media Family – “Perfect Strangers” and “Perfect” Strangers

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”

– Dostoevsky

I ran across this draft from June 2021, so here I am, finishing it. And I feel happy that little has changed in the next two paragraphs that I saved in the draft.

Social media is what you make of it. For me it’s a playground. I aim to keep things light with humor and music, maybe occasionally sharing personal news, but my focus is on creating high-vibrating content in a world where downers are shared too easily.

I have so much that I could write about my thoughts on social media, but I’m focusing on this for this blog post – I feel grateful for my social media family. Whether or not you consider people who you met though social media as “real friends” and whether or not you’ve spent time with them in person, you probably feel grateful for the interactions with your social media family. And you should! The time and energy you spend with those connections is still YOUR time and energy.

We’re approaching five years since I launched this website/blog. At the time I thought writing was what I was supposed to be doing to share my voice and shine a light on your day to help you feel less anxiety and stress in your day. It took time, but I found a rhythm and flow of my writing. I had a range of topics to share, sometimes guided by whatever popped up that day. But then I fell into making videos.

My goofiness in learning to play ukulele had a more natural flow for creating daily content and fulfilling my mission and purpose to BE THE LIGHT. I made daily videos for TikTok and Instagram before I started building my YouTube channel, and at each platform, I found encouragement and kindness. And when daily videos became too time consuming, I had a break and returned with Freestyle Fridays.

For the most part, Freestyle Fridays are either one-take videos recorded with the same feel of my earliest videos of learning to play ukulele. I’ve also expanded to learning-in-progress videos where I record myself to see how my learning is coming along with new songs or new instruments. I finally committed to learning to play guitar correctly!

The biggest, most meaningful compliments I receive are the ones when someone writes that they look forward to Freestyle Fridays or that they feel inspired by learning or that they smiled and enjoyed my video. Their words serve as affirmation that I’m fulfilling my mission and purpose.

Some of these perfect strangers have become friends beyond social media platforms, and I feel grateful that our paths crossed. One of my dearest friends is Laurie who I mentioned in the 2021 blog post, No Other Way. Over the years, because we work so closely together on collaborations, we began to share more from our personal lives, and we marvel at the things we have in common. We laugh at our susceptibility to ads and the CVS makeup aisle. We crack ourselves up over the silliest things. And I count Laurie as a blessing for being able to lift me when I feel down.

Laurie and I currently have TEN collaborations, not counting other projects in which we participated with a bigger music community. I cannot say it enough – you have to shine YOUR light so that others can find you. I feel ever grateful for Laurie shining so brightly because we found each other, and both of us are focused on the FUN of creating and helping others to take a break from whatever is going on in their lives so that they have just a few minutes to smile and feel some relief from anything weighing on them.

The perfect strangers are the ones in whom I see this quote:

Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.”

– Mother Teresa

Luceat lux vestra.