Facebook

Okay, I guess I just must be missing something..

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2036683,00.html?xid=newsletter-weekly

I was on Facebook for about 5 months..then I was getting divorced and I just couldn't handle taking my little heart down that said I was married..I did not want to put it out there, I just wanted to quietly be divorced and not in the the world of Facebook...so I just became a closed account I suppose.

I have not missed Facebook at all, not one bit. I found it all a waste of time and exhausting to waste my time..I must be missing something though, considering how popular it is and how much time people spend on there. ??? I don't feel like I am missing anything. In fact, the day I took myself off it I felt better. I did not feel like I had to present how great my life was, all the fabulous things I was up to, tons of photos, showing my life in all its wonderful glory. hah.

It sounds terrible, but I don't really care what people are up to that I have not been in touch with for years anyhow..okay, that isn't totally true, I do like to catch up, but I don't need to keep catching up..it is like high school reunions for me..they are fun, but they are fleeting. My experience of Facebook, is that we have become obsessed with being important, and posting about ourselves, our lifes, photos, etc..seems to be a way to make ourselves bigger than we really are..are celebrities all that big anyhow?? only because they get ton of press, really they are just people... and my friends that I am in touch with, well I don't feel like I need to go to Facebook to see what they are up to, and same goes for my family.

From Time's Person of the Year..

Almost seven years ago, in February 2004, when Zuckerberg was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard, he started a Web service from his dorm. It was called Thefacebook.com, and it was billed as "an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges." This year, Facebook — now minus the the — added its 550 millionth member. One out of every dozen people on the planet has a Facebook account. They speak 75 languages and collectively lavish more than 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month. Last month the site accounted for 1 out of 4 American page views. Its membership is currently growing at a rate of about 700,000 people a day.

What just happened? In less than seven years, Zuckerberg wired together a twelfth of humanity into a single network, thereby creating a social entity almost twice as large as the U.S. If Facebook were a country it would be the third largest, behind only China and India. It started out as a lark, a diversion, but it has turned into something real, something that has changed the way human beings relate to one another on a species-wide scale. We are now running our social lives through a for-profit network that, on paper at least, has made Zuckerberg a billionaire six times over.

Facebook has merged with the social fabric of American life, and not just American but human life: nearly half of all Americans have a Facebook account, but 70% of Facebook users live outside the U.S. It's a permanent fact of our global social reality. We have entered the Facebook age, and Mark Zuckerberg is the man who brought us here.

Okay I have to say these are amazing facts and stats! I am very impressed! But I am still not a fan. See, I would much rather hear about important things going on in people's lives..I don't care about a party over the weekend..I care about who they are. I think we are becoming less and less interesting, I don't feel people offer a lot of depth, and that is way more interesting to me.
To be fair, I have not been on Facebook in over 18 months..so I don't know, maybe people are posting all kinds of things about themselves that show their depth..I am going to guess no...maybe I am just really weird, and completely missing the boat of why Facebook is so appealing..but I am going to say that people want to be important, and Facebook offers a small spot in the world to do that..but at the end of the day, I don't think it changes anything for the masses..life will move on incredibly fast, we will feel like it is so fleeting, and when we are gone our Facebook page won't really matter. But hopefully we will have written a person or two a really beautiful note, we will have connected with our parents and children and siblings and friends (and not hundreds of them, you cannot really have hundreds of great friends..) we will have made amends and we will have forgiven. We will have reached out, and shared some amazing laughs, and some tears, we will have made a difference to some very special people in our life. That is what matters to me and I don't need Facebook to do that at all.

Love Changes Everything

I feel like so much has changed in 6 months that in some ways I hardly recognize the "me" that was around for so long..and then of course there is the "me" that I will always know.. :)

2010 is almost now over. It was a great year. It was one of my best years in a very long time. I could say it is so, because I fell in love. That would be pretty honest. Love changes everything. Oh I know it is cliche, and I should have large, grandiose things going on in my life to change things, but I do not. I never really do. I am just not wired that way. I actually like being at home, cleaning the house, making dinner, raking the leaves, being a family, hearing "honey I am home." I feel like I am a character out of a 60s TV show.

I do women's lib a disservice..I should be saying my life changed because I ran a marathon, or got a degree, or went to Haiti and worked with the poor, or volunteered, and on and on..but that would be untrue.

Before being in love again, I did do a lot of work on me. Mostly internal, mostly cleaning "me" up, answering my own unanswered questions, finding a new path, putting the past behind me, really putting the past behind me, and I can say that is A LOT of work, I don't think it can be done overnight. But then it is done, and it does seem like overnight, as time is so fleeting..and then there is a whole new canvas staring at you, and life goes on. This was my journey. This was my grandiose thing.

I can live a very full and happy life not being in a love relationship..I proved that to myself for 18 months. In many ways it was a remarkable time. But at the end of it all, I am far more of a person, I blossom so much more than I can on my own. While I can love me, there really is much more in having someone love me. That might go against a lot of self help books, I don't know, and I really don't care.

2010 was my best year in a long time. I love, love, love someone and it changed my life, when 2 years ago I sobbed that my life was over, ruined, and I was devastated, for losing so much time, for getting older and not creating something that would last. But I don't feel like that anymore, thankfully, now I cry at sad movies and love stories, but not at my life..I hope it lasts.

Across the Room

I blinked and November came and went. It more just went. I barely even remember November..it seems like there was Halloween, Thanksgiving Day and then December 1.

I am really happy. I am very in love. I look across the room and think"I love you." It makes me almost cry to think it, let alone say it. It is like a rushing wave, that has come in and filled so many gaps in my soul that grew over the past couple of years. I don't know, but for me, those gaps can only be filled with being in love. And yet there is a part of me that wonders if the bottom will fall out. I feel like I was trained for so long, to be on alert, that at any given moment what I had would all fall away, and in the end, it did. So it is somewhat hard for me to believe it is real, it is not going away, it is not an illusion and I can believe. I hope so. I like feeling this way.

And there is this expanse now in my mind, I suppose like love opening up more and more. Hard to convey. It fills my thoughts, and my dreams. It becomes my future. I have said before that I am walking across two bridges--one that is leaving my past, and one that leads to my future. I walk them in tandem, although the past bridge I believe I have all but walked across. I don't feel like there is any more unfinished business. I am glad that I love my past. It is a good place to be. And I love the idea of my future, another good place to be.

I told my little daughter last night that I believe we are here to love and forgive. It is like a constant cycle, it never stops. It seems we must forgive all the time..it can be for very small things or much bigger things. But there is no getting around forgiveness. And love, love is this amazing part of life..it fills every day and so many moments, and we can see it by just looking across the room :) .