Taking the Leap (away from fascism)

You can only get pushed and pushed and pushed to a certain point, and then it becomes easier to take a leap to somewhere else. That happened to us with our first child, as we tried to find his place in the landscape of school options, and nothing--just nothing--felt good to him. We had heard about some mysterious people who just didn't send their kids to school at all: unschoolers. Terrifying. But after some research, I timidly told our son's Kindergarten principal that we'd be joining the unschoolers. And to my shock, he agreed it was a good idea for our boy! I was scared, but we jumped. And suddenly we felt so free.

So the thing about jumping is that you do get this feeling of freedom, but then you have to land, and land running. I guess we've mastered that, now. We embraced the landing of our unschooling choice, and took step after stumbling step over the next ten or so years, until we discovered our kids (because our daughter chose to unschool as well) were fully capable teens running their own show. And now they're happy, independent adults, still running their own show. We made it! But it wasn't just lucky. It was planned.

You don't jump out of a plane with no preparation. Or at least I hope you don't. I jumped into the unschooling world after a bit of research and some deep heart-searching, because I needed to be sure I could give up my career for this. And I did. I bit the bullet and did it, and we're all OK!! The thing is about making big life-changes: you have to run with it. Don't go timidly. You go with intention, and determination to keep taking the next step, even as you're just starting the first one.

Same for getting married, for maintaining what has sometimes been a difficult marriage, for buying a new car, for taking a huge road-trip with the kids, for some of my biggest art projects, for growing our own food, for my kids when they decided to move out and support themselves, and now... for leaving fascist media in the dust, even though it feels like the whole world depends on it.

Yep. This week I spent every spare minute researching and planning for my leap away from Meta, Paypal, Amazon, and Windows. (I never used X to begin with.) Poof! In two weeks I'll be free of all of them. And yes that includes their hard-copy shops like Whole Foods. Done.

Is it scary? YES!! Especially because most of my friends and even my own kids are not following suit. I've only managed to find a few dozen of my community members on BlueSky, and even fewer on Mastodon. But I have faith that number will grow and, on the whole, I feel delighted. 

I think I'm in the free-fall stage of taking a leap. I'm buoyed by that feeling of weightless joy that I feel at the top of a swing's arc. I made profiles on BlueSky and Mastodon, and spent two days messaging contacts on Meta and asking for their email addresses and phone numbers. My Contacts folders are now a thing of beauty. 

But the best part is that I've had a few really wonderful conversations (by text and email) with some friends I've not spoken to in years. It turns out I was seeing almost nothing of what my friends posted on Meta, and now I'm finally connecting with these people! Even my European cousins are jumping off WhatsApp and we've moved our cousins-chat to Signal. With a little faith, all this turns out to be easy. It's like a refreshment for my heart and mind! Remember when we used to just call each other for a visit? Or simply drop by? I hope that becomes normal, again.

So, I need a parachute, right? That list of friends' contacts is my parachute. I spent a good long time creating it, and I trust that it will hold me. I've been researching where to get goods locally to replace the things I shamefully relied on getting through Amazon. Additionally, I'll have to learn to use a Linux operating system. That's going to be my next big task. Thankfully I live with a man who has some experience with it, so I know I'll manage. And even one of the locals who's also migrating off of Meta has offered to coach me. We have a beautiful community.

I guess the thing about taking a big leap is to just do it. In all of these situations I got pushed so far I couldn't not jump. In this case, I just know that there is no possible way I can live with myself if I support or am even associated with fascist companies. Being confronted by the irrefutable fascism of these people has pushed me off their platforms. Period. Now I just have to hit the ground running, and I think I can manage that. See you on the other side!

*I'm aware that many people feel we have to stay on these media to transform them. But that's just not me. I like working from the ground up, and now I'm off to help with building something better. For more details on why I'm leaving fascist media, etc. please check out my previous post: My Grandmother's Cocoa and How We Overcome Fascism

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