Darby was sitting in the kitchen by the window. She'd just made a cup of tea and had a crumpet with butter and Marmite on it. If we’re counting, the crumpet had lots of butter, so much more than was recommended to anyone who wanted to keep their heart in shape. There was a lot of the lovely brown stuff, too. All in all, it was a very good crumpet. After answering a text from Molly and speaking to Elly in Spain, she laughed to herself about the video she’d edited and uploaded to her channel the day before. After she’d come back from the walk to the harbour with Lola, she’d decided just to send the video to Penny by email because she hadn’t been able to work out how to get a private link to it.
Having pondered enjoying the process of learning something new, she’d decided to learn more about it, but just do it for herself. There was no way she would be broadcasting her private life to the internet yet. It felt good to be starting something and she was looking forward to documenting the before and after of the kitchen. Then she’d be able to look back and see how far she’d come.
Surprised that Penny hadn’t messaged her, she idly opened the app, tapped on her dashboard, scrolled and ran her eyesdown her videos. One was a test she’d done to try and see how it worked, one a video of Lola digging a hole and the main collection of footage clips she’d edited and added music to. Frowning, she shook her head. How very strange. To the right of the thumbnail for the video, it noted 10k. Ten thousand what? That was weird.
Wondering how it worked. She tapped on the thumbnail and then on three little dots in the top right-hand corner. After hitting the pencil icon, she chuckled and not in a good way, at her face looking back at her from her phone. Her eyes were half closed and the look on her face wasn’t her best. After reading the title section, then the words in the description box, she frowned. Then she went cold as she saw with horror the “Visibility” section. Right there in front of her eyes, it told her that the video was not on private at all. How in the world had that happened? It had most definitely been private when she’d uploaded it. Apparently not.
Gulping, it didn’t really matter what it had been on the day before because for sure it was now live for all to see. Not only that, oh no, 10,000 viewers had watched it and there were over 300 comments. Darby didn't know what to do or think or anything. She was horrified, to be quite honest. Sitting on the wobbly chair in the kitchen surrounded by pine, she shook her head over and over and over again and massaged the wrinkles on her forehead, as if that would somehow help.
Not believing that she'd accidentally put the video out to the world, she sat in shock. Thousands of people had seen her cobbled-together ramblings meant for Penny. The silly intro. The fact that she’d announced to all and sundry where she lived. Talking to Lola! Really? Although that was one step up from what came later and her talking to an actual kitchen wall. Staring at the screen, her crumpet forgotten and going cold on the plate beside her, Darby screwed up her face and then buried it in herhands. Ten thousand views. Tapping again on her phone, the number seemed to pulse at her. She'd made the video full of honesty and her raw thoughts as a trial run. Yes, it had been with a view to eventually having a channel, but mostly it was unedited and contained her talking to what she'd assumed would be an audience of one.
Cringing, she felt like crying. There she was on the video, sitting at the kitchen table, still in her work clothes or her dressing gown, nattering on about how she'd spent the afternoon rearranging the same three cushions on the sofa and wondering about starting the renovation of the kitchen. She'd rambled on about the peculiar emptiness of coming home to a house that stayed exactly as she'd left it, about eating toast for dinner because cooking for one felt both pointless and depressing, about the way time seemed to stretch endlessly when there was nobody to organise around. She'd talked about finding herself standing in the middle of rooms, forgetting what she'd come in for, about the strange guilt that came with having nothing urgent to do when for twenty years every moment had been accounted for. She'd mentioned the way she sometimes found herself talking to the dog. She’d actually filmed herself talking to the wall. How the house sometimes felt like a museum of her former life.
She'd thought she was being so clever, setting it to private. How typical that she’d even got that wrong. Fail. The idea that thousands of strangers had witnessed her kitchen table confessions made her stomach lurch with mortification. Scrolling down to the comments, she made a funny face and closed one eye as she expected to find trolls galore, nasty messages and strangers telling her what a loser she was. On the verge of tears, she braced herself and then frowned in surprise. Instead of abuse, the first comment made her breath catch in her throat.
Oh my goodness, THANK YOU for this. I'm ten years or so older but feel the same! I’m 52, kids left home last year, and I thought I was going mad feeling this lost. You've just described my exact life and made me feel so much less alone. I haven’t talked to a wall yet, but I might give it a go.
The comment had 47 likes. Darby scrolled down, not quite able to believe what she was seeing. As she read comment after comment from women who seemed to recognise themselves in her rambling confession, she wasn’t sure what to think. She kept blinking and shaking her head as if she were seeing things. Letters and words floated in front of her eyes.
This is the most honest thing I've seen in years. Finally, someone is talking about what it's really like when your main job as a parent ends and you have no idea who you are anymore.
I've been eating cereal for dinner for three weeks because I can't be bothered to cook for just me. Thank you for making me feel normal.
The bit about rearranging cushions because you can't think of anything else to do - I felt that in my soul. Subscribed immediately.
Been following all these perfect lifestyle channels and feeling like a failure. All the bleached teeth! This is what real life actually looks like. More please!
Darby kept scrolling, her brain feeling as if it might explode. Comment after comment from women in their forties, fifties, and beyond, all saying variations of the same thing - that she'd articulated feelings they'd thought were uniquely theirs, thatseeing someone else admit to the strange grief of the changing roles in life had made them feel less broken.
I've been pretending to my family that I'm fine since my youngest left for university. Watching this while crying into my cup of tea and feeling grateful that someone else understands the weird emptiness of getting everything you thought you wanted.
You've put words to something I didn't know how to say.
There were thousands of views and hundreds of comments. Women sharing their own stories of cushion-rearranging, toast dinners and conversations with pets. Women admitting to feeling guilty for not embracing their newfound freedom, for missing the chaos they'd spent years complaining about, for not knowing what to do with themselves after their primary identity had walked out the door with car keys and laundry bags.
Darby read and read. Comments from women who'd subscribed to her channel based on one single video, women who were asking for more content about navigating life, women who said they'd shared the video with friends who were going through the same thing.
Please tell me you're going to make more videos. I need to know I'm not the only one who feels like I'm floating in space. This is exactly what we need more of - real women talking about real life instead of trying to sell us skincare routines we can't afford.
Darby flicked her eyes from her phone and stared out the kitchen window at her overgrown garden, trying to process what had just happened. She'd accidentally shared her mostvulnerable moments with thousands of strangers, and instead of mockery or indifference, she'd found women who understood exactly what she was talking about. How had that even happened? She’d heard all sorts of weird and wonderful things about the algorithm. Clearly, some of it was true. It had found women like her who'd been pretending to be fine while quietly falling apart in kitchens across the country.
Thank you for being brave enough to say what we're all thinking. This is the content we didn't know we needed.
She scrolled through a few more comments and felt something weird happen. Like some sort of a power. If this many women felt the way she did, if her rambling honesty had somehow helped them feel less alone, then maybe her mistake hadn't been a mistake at all. Maybe it had been exactly what she was supposed to do. Was it that thing called the universe going about its business again? Perhaps. She could but wait and see.
13
Scrolling through her recent calls, Darby tapped to phone Penny. She needed to talk to someone about what had just happened and Penny was the only person who would understand the full magnitude of the disaster or whatever it was that was happening on Darby’s newly born channel. Love from Pretty Beach had been born in the most spectacular way.
The phone rang three times before Penny answered. Darby tried to keep her voice calm. ‘Hi.’
'Darbs? Are you okay? You sound a bit panicky.'
'Pen, have you watched the video I sent you yet?' Darby tried to keep her voice level.
'Oh, the one you sent me last night? No, sorry, I went to bed early. I’ve been feeling absolutely rotten with this cold, you know how it is. I haven't even looked at my phone properly this morning. Why? Is everything okay?'
Darby closed her eyes and took a deep breath. 'You’re not going to believe this. It’s peak Darby. I, umm, something's happened and I don't quite know what to do about it.'
