We had a good run, Facebook.
A distant Facebook friend of mine recently posted that she was gifting herself some peace and serenity this year, and deleting her Facebook on NYE. I read it absentmindedly and moved on instantly, but for some reason it got stuck in my brain.
I quit drinking a couple of years ago. I was at a big fork in the road, and I really, really needed to be a healthy, normal human with life skills, coping tools, and the time and ability to be a more present wife, mother, daughter, and friend. I was never a raging alcoholic, but I could not imagine a whole day without drinking. What would I do if I had a night off? How would I celebrate things? How would I reward myself? How would I deal with difficult things? Maybe I could control it. Have I tried that yet?? (Spoiler alert; I had.) There were a million reasons to stop, but it still took a lot of time and torture to finally make the decision.
I have definitely enjoyed a beer with friends a couple of times during the last two years, so I’m not claiming absolute abstinence, but my total dependence on day-to-day drinking has disappeared, and my life is indescribably better because of it. I am SO HAPPY I made that decision and stuck with it.
So, here I am assessing my relationship with Facebook lately, and I’m realizing that the territory looks kindof familiar. I’m hardly ever genuinely present with my family. I wonder where the heck all my time is going. Simple, easy things are not getting done. I feel entitled to tune out, and I’m irritated when I get interrupted. Do we seriously always just unknowingly replace one shitty habit with another one? Rude.
I’ve been chattering lately about minding my own business and making sure my own life is rad. About how social media isn’t real, and maybe it’s not so beneficial to instantly know every event that may (or may not) be happening in the world. About how what I really want to do is mind my own home/farm/family/life/etc, ensure that my little corner of the world is awesome, and share it with the people I love, instead of contributing by feeling stress and anger about something unfair or violent that happened on the other side of the world. You can only touch what touches you, right?
Yet here I am, hypocritically sitting in one spot day after day, endlessly scrolling and ignoring the wonderful things right under my nose. ZERO productivity. It’s obviously become kindof a problem for me.
I feel some familiar, weird angst about dropping it; what will I do to relax? How will I accidentally stumble upon new ideas and information? How will I keep in touch with old friends? Nobody will look at this blog unless I post it. Where will I find recipes or advice or support? How will I dig up all the dirt on someone or stalk old friends/enemies? Maybe I can control it better. Have I tried that? What will I do when I have a really hard day??
DUH!! 🤦♀️🤦♀️
I will wake up and enjoy things like trees and the cold-ass breeze on my face and read books and connect with people and sit in the sunshine and build things with my hands and have conversations and grow a garden and start appreciating the small, lovely things that I’m totally missing right now. I feel confident that I can learn to live without the constant stream of entertainment and memes that my poor hypertrophied brain is used to seeing every day.
I will definitely continue to contribute to this blog, so please check back from time to time or follow this page if you’d like updates.
Happy 2023 to all of you. I hope everyone finds some extra peace, meaning, & happiness for themselves this year. ❤️