Goodbye, Hello

I kissed Facebook goodbye this week. 

Leading up to the deletion, I was surprised at how big of a decision it felt to be.  There were so many people that I was in touch with from my past, family included, that I wouldn't have been in touch with otherwise and, sadly, would lose contact with if I deleted the account.  But it felt like the right thing to do.  I posted my email address in a final status update and said I was outta there.  Most of the objections came from folks who were sad they wouldn't have updates on Roman anymore (it is true, that once a child is in the picture, the people who gave life to that child suddenly doesn't exist quite as much anymore.  Totally worth it, though. I love you, Roman).  Sorry folks...keeping Facebook just so you can see pictures of Roman isn't enough for me.  I'm not that good at posing updated pictures anyway.

So I gathered the email addresses of people I really did not want to lose contact with, saved pictures I had been tagged in that weren't mine originally, and that was that.  Once I confirmed that I did indeed wish to end it all, everything felt so anticlimactic.

Oh....that wasn't so bad.  Huh....I feel pretty good.

Suddenly, the responsibility of knowing where dinner group is this week isn't mine anymore.  JACOB will have to be the one to step up to the bat on that one! 

Suddenly, I'm not seeing a bunch of religious/political/general-opinion-crap-that-I-don't-want-to-hear-about status updates!!

Suddenly, I have one less Big Brother creepily tracking my every single move!!!

One strange thing I will admit to, though, is when something happens or I think of something and my next thought is "ooh, that'll be a great status update."  (Gawd, how ridiculous! But it's totally true that we do that!)  It's okay...that phantom limb will be gone in a few weeks, I suspect.

In the meantime, I will get back to what I was doing during Lent and actually being more thoughtful and deliberate in communicating with people.  I WILL keep writing letters!  (E-mails too, because sometimes it's just quicker and not everything requires a hand-written letter.) Who doesn't love to get a piece of actual mail, even if it is just someone who wants to say hello.  Who knows, maybe I'll get good at actually getting together with my friends once in awhile too.

So goodbye Facebookland, hello real life!