So I gave up Facebook for Lent. I know. Shut up. It was a stupid idea, but I’m going through with it. I sent out messages to everyone with a Feb/March birthday in advance wishing them a happy day. I didn’t want to miss anyone. Really, Facebook is where all my friends live. Sad, but true. I finished all my Words with Friends games. That even led me to a nice chat with someone I rarely chat with, so that makes me feel sad because obviously, it’s nice to have human interaction. I crushed my last Candy Crush Saga candies, I’m sure no one will be playing that by the time I get back to it, but that’s okay. I’d been scaling back from the news feed anyway, people posting all sorts of pro-gun photos and the horrible political stuff that goes with them.* It just made me unhappy. So far this morning I’ve updated things on my blog, searched for ideas for my kitchen, cleaned off the table, made coffee, put paint cards up on the wall, checked twitter and tweeted my ‘life is unfair without Facebook’ tweet, wondered if anyone else was up yet, ordered magazines to help out my nephew’s school (he’s the last one, so I ordered enough for him to get a tshirt, woo!), wished I had some photos off of Facebook so I could post them here, tidied up a little bit, went through a magazine and tore out a cool overhead light fixture page so Matt could see it, sent a request to a TV show to feature cloth diapers for Earth day and on and on. Really not much different, just say using Pinterest and perhaps getting somewhere, versus Facebook and finding out what other people are doing. Weird? Maybe. The thing is, we were meant to be a population that shared information in groups, not lived in solitary, and my life is kind of solitary right now. I know, I know, quit whining. 40 days isn’t so long. It will warm up and we’ll be having a good time sooner or later. 😉
I guess this is a great social experiment for me. Let’s see how lonely I can get, or let’s see who actively seeks me out. I know I have been off and on a bit just to see, and if I don’t post something, it’s not like many people notice. Plenty of people yesterday were trying to talk me out of it or give me outs, but I think I’ll stick with it. I’ve been on there for 8 years. Since you had to have an education email to use it. I’ll miss chatting with people, but maybe they’ll attempt to catch me instead of always the other way around. Or I’ll have had a nice technology break and maybe get some stuff done around the house. Either way! I’ll still be posting daily here and tweeting Monday nights at 8pm CST with the rest of the #clothdiapers folks.
My daughter decided to get up early, which wouldn’t be so much of a problem if I didn’t have to yell at her to get her to go back to bed. Right now, she’s on the couch, annoying the crap out of me. She’s counting. Wiggling. I’ve begged her just to go read upstairs, this hearing thing has GOT to go. I need her at full capacity or I can not function. I need to just be able to say, go back upstairs without screaming it. Ugh. Ah well, I rarely get to see her laying down, so I guess I’ll enjoy that. Pretty soon it’s going to be full volume in here, and I need some peace and quiet!
*don’t get me wrong, guns have their place, just like when I post about cloth diapers, it’s like excuse me, sorry, but isn’t this cute, people who love this? not ‘all of you who don’t agree with me are stupid and should be put down’.. yeah those things? I could totally live without, if you’re showing me your pistol because you love it, awesome. no issues with that!
Giving up FaceBook is a real sacrifice – especially as isolated as you are. I say stick with it!!! I may give that a go next year, but this year I’ve got a brother who is hopping about in the mid-East from frying pan to frying pan it seems and FB is the ONLY communication we have. Supposedly he’ll be home more when things “calm down”. We’ll see.
I have friends who have very different opinions and feelings about things like politics and guns and almost any topic you’d care to mention. I just kind of skip over that stuff – and I hide one of my brothers on a regular basis just because he’s like a dog with a bone on certain topics. He just won’t let go and gets more and more vocal when people try to reason with him. I’d just rather not go there, so I don’t.
Enjoy your peace – at least on the FB side. Don’t know what to tell you about the in-person, elusive peace…