On Refreshing

notes from the twelfth reload

First, the facts: nothing has changed. I know this. I checked anyway — eleven times in the last four minutes — and I will check again, because the alternative is doing the thing.

Refreshing is hope with its coat still on. It stands at the door of the internet, one hand on the knob, rehearsing casualness. Maybe the news arrived while I wasn't looking. Maybe the email, the answer, the person — maybe all of it slipped in through the crack between checks. The crack is theoretical. I check the crack.

Of all the buttons, the refresh button is the only honest one. It says: the world does not move until you ask twice. It is wrong, of course. The world moves constantly, rudely, without supervision — parties, seasons, other people's lives. It does not wait to be refreshed. It simply goes.

And yet the little spinner remains the most optimistic object ever built. It promises nothing. It says, politely, one moment, please, and means it every time, no matter how many times it has implied otherwise.

Here is what I have learned, so that you don't have to: the thing you are waiting for is never on the other side of a refresh. It is on the other side of a Tuesday. Of a decent sleep. Of the boring errand you keep postponing. Life does not load. It deposits — in small, unannounced installments, while you are busy refreshing something else.

refresh less. live more. — there. i have now written the worst sentence of the year, and i am leaving it in as a warning to us both.

The tab is still open, of course. One more check. Then I'll go.