Responding to “What have you been up to?”

by Devina

Okay. So my best friend Daniella and I are pretty private when it comes to our personal lives, which is sad because a lot of our friends have no idea what we do.

Few weeks back I had a long Skype session with one of our best friends from college, and during our session, he said, “I thought you were dead on a street or something. You probably aren’t making much money and yet you’re going places and it’s so confusing.” And later on he asked, “And what the hell is Daniella doing?”

Mind you, we only post on Facebook when we feel like it. Usually when it’s an event or a trip, so if you’re our Facebook friends, you can probably see how we’ve traveled to places with no evidence of work or daily struggle.

We post once every few months, and disappear most of the time. Daniella sometimes posts a lot of inspiring quotes, and I my sketches.

Our profiles show nothing of what we do, except our travels.

I laugh whenever someone asks me, “What on earth have you been doing?”

Unlike others who routinely post on Facebook or tweet on Twitter the happenings in their lives, we don’t.

Well we do, but the most fun parts.

I don’t update my LinkedIn profile, which probably still states that I’ve been a student for too long. I don’t update my career on Facebook, which I don’t know holds what information on me. I haven’t even changed the location of my Twitter, which I started using when I was living in France.

But just like everyone else, really, I’ve just been working, figuring things out, and trying hard to map out however to get to my dreams. Daniella’s been doing the same too. Perhaps our routes are different, but we’re pretty much headed the same direction.

No, I’m not dead on a street in India. Not selling my soul to the devil. No, I don’t have a criminal record yet. No, I’m not in rehab.

Of course, those who keep tabs on our profiles are the ones who worry about us and love us, so thank you for doing so. It’s understandable that you need to know our location and what exactly we do, but to be honest, we’re not sure of that either.

So maybe next time someone asks me, “What have you been up to?” I can just answer, “Living, pretty much figuring out how to do it well.”