This morning is the first time I’ve looked at an influencer’s site. Lee and Max’s nature photos are magnetic – they drew me in and I kept scrolling until I’d seen them all. No wonder people followed them. Beautiful people, beautiful places, a beautiful lifestyle – just beautiful.
Their route was familiar to me. By the time I was in my mid-thirties I’d backpacked through every state, across Canada, down into Mexico and Central America and made my way from Singapore to China.
Naturally, I was stunned to discover that in a short 2 years, Lee and Max had travelled ground that it had taken me 20 years to cover.
Travelling can be so disorienting, I learned to stop, meet people and stay a while. Some of my relationships with strangers lasted decades as pen pals. I can’t see how Lee and Max could have travelled that many miles and formed any relationships. They just didn’t have the time to do both.
In my early twenties I also backpacked with a boyfriend. A month in the wilderness, just the two of us, always created a bond that quickly vanished when we were home. Like Lee and Max, we broke up too.
Lee and Max spent two years travelling together. Along the way, I suspect Lee unknowingly developed an unhealthy dependency on Max. By the time they started talking about breaking up, Lee’s bond with Max had to be intense. Thinking about her future on her own, probably triggered depression.
Without Max, there would be no more Instagram photos of Lee’s exciting adventures in stunning landscapes and thrilling places. Confronting what she was capable of doing alone, must have torn her apart.
People have been going through break ups forever. Lee very surely could have weathered the storm. But allowing the whole world to watch her do it suggests a tragic detachment from reality.
Lee needed time to adjust and build a life for herself. But she didn’t give herself that time. Instead, Lee turned on Instagram. Watching Lee in her living room doing yoga, talking about her internal life and diet made me ache.
This morning’s visit to Instagram will be my last.
