I have been taking a break from FB. I've decided not to post, like or comment on anything but photos, for now. Facebook is not a place one goes to interact positively any more...it's rife with political squabbles even among "friends." I cannot go there to be snarked at by my internet friends, whom I value probably way more than I should. After all, I don't really know these people, do I...even though I have been communicating with many of them for the greater portion of the last 15 years. And they don't know me. So what's the point?
Facebook is valuable as a way to keep tabs on distant old friends and family members. But of the 47 Facebook "friends" to which I lay claim, only about a dozen are folks that have been/would be in my life outside of the internet. And when it comes to internet "friends," social media giveth, and social media taketh away.
So I have slowly been going through my friends list and weeding out the people I have no business having little windows into their personal lives--like former employees. They don't actually interact with me any more...I feel like some kind of creepy voyeur being interested in their lives seven years past their real-life association with me. And it's not as if these young people were my "friends" when we were in each others' real lives. So what the fuck am I doing peeping into their personal business now? It's a little sick, really.
Looming in the background is the task of terminating my FB association with the last few of my internet "friends" from the old AOL j-land. These are people with whom I once shared myself on a level which I have not before nor since shared with anyone...not my family, not my husband. But that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... I have to come to accept that everyone has moved on from that place. And so I must, too. But it's just so hard to walk away.
As I've been ticking away at this post, it dawned on me that my "blog-a-versary" was 2 days ago.
Fifteen years.
Fifteen years I've carried on this love/hate relationship with the internet, its gifts and its poisons.
I really don't know how to comment on that, just now.
It has all gotten so, weird. Too many seem to be permanently wired to react. A lot of times I feel the reaction begin and back up. Don't pour gas on the fire. Especially folks you don't really know. I value you. Don't express it very well. You can contact me any time. Love your decorations by the way. I've been strangely tapped out these past weeks. Can't seem to write. The world is very weird right now. NOt like I need to tell you.
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