For those of you who are not on the women’s soccer team at TMU, you probably do not know these awesome people, BUT here is all you need to know: they both have made my time at Truett so far memorable, full of laughs, worth the late nights talks, and (most importantly) we bond over food. For the first time since the spring semester, I stayed on campus for the weekend without having soccer responsibilities and luckily my buddies were here too!

I have taken a break from social media due to a multitude of reasons and it has opened my eyes to so much. Although my weekend experience with Elise and Tina was “post-social media hiatus”, it made me realize how much less I depended on social media. I will not bore you with an hourly itinerary of our weekend, but I will say that I remember Tina turning the car around out of anger because she didn’t get sweet tea and not what was being said on Twitter about the election. I will remember Elise tossing Dunkin’ Donut munchkins into my mouth at midnight, not who had the prettiest dress at homecoming earlier that afternoon.

A few months back, I wrote an article about making memories any time of the year and not waiting. I also wrote one about appreciating the little things in life. In this small weekend of adventures I had in Cleveland, Georgia I had the privilege to experience the feelings mentioned in those previous articles. I found joy in driving to KFC spontaneously at 9:40, going to Wal-Mart at 11:20 to buy a pair of boots, motivating Tina to do an ab workout right after eating a donut, listening to Elise sing “Elise Navidad” instead of Feliz Navidad, and not having any worries. I wasn’t worried about taking the perfect picture to post on my Instagram or even if I would get enough sleep. I was more than content with not having a plan for my day. I found joy in seeing my friends happy; whether that be because we suddenly had an endless supply of dessert or because the fountain drinks in the caf were working again. Regardless, I didn’t need social media to pass my time or for entertainment.

If taking a break from social media taught me anything, it’s that we spend too much time wasting our time. We waste our time practically spying on people we barely know when we could be spending quality time with people we actually care about. I’m thankful for friends who can make me genuinely happy just by being themselves. Social media creates false images, but here I have friends who weren’t hiding from me. I spent my weekend with two amazing people who probably don’t know how much they mean to me.

I walked over into the next room to ask Elise and Tina what I should write about as my comeback to social media. After joking about that for a minute, Elise said in her happy child voice “My fun weekend with Elise and Tina!” Yeah, she was excited about it. Tina shook her head because that’s just what we do when Elise says something, but little did they know I would be writing about exactly that. I’m thankful for friends who I can actually talk to without social media, who can be 100% honest with me, laugh with and at me, have a serious conversation but also use unpopular slang in normal conversation, and appreciate the simplicity of life.

Our generation relies on the internet far too much. I promise, if you find the right people to surround yourself with, you will not want to look for the unimportant temporary laughs social media supplies for you.