It's been about 2 months since I quit my main account. By "main account" I mean the account that had all of my friends from elementary school. Life is different now.
I was a member of a Stay At Home Mom group. I was a member of several local buy and sell groups. I was a member of a local military wives group. I was an admin for a few groups. Throughout the day (when I'd get bored) I would browse through my news feed. It wasn't really MY news feed, though, when I think about it. It was the news of random people who had added me out of some compulsive need to keep up with people they knew when they were in 2nd grade. I had people on there from middle school and high school, too. None of these people knew me. None of them cared about the pictures of my new baby. None of them cared when I got married. Sure, they clicked "like" on a status update or timeline event. "Congrats!" on big ones. It was the loneliest togetherness I've ever experienced. On top of all of this, I was no longer the person these people knew as a second-grader or even as a high schooler. I was an entirely different person on a different path. I felt as though I had to adhere to the way I used to be as to not surprise anyone with how much I've changed. I avoided people so they wouldn't notice the change if they were ever to talk to me. One day I realized that I saw one of my Facebook friends at the supermarket and I avoided her. I decided at that moment that if I didn't want to speak to you in public, you probably shouldn't be on my friends list.
That was the first cut back.
The second cut back came when I had literally sat in my chair all day long ignoring my baby to participate in some random drama of some women I don't know in a Stay At Home Moms' group. I won't go into the details, but suffice to say that I wasted a day of my life there. Around the same time one of my "friends" at the time posted this ---------->
on her wall. It showed up in my news feed. I cried. My baby had just turned a year old and it had flown by... all the while I wasted the first year on this fucking computer--this wretched addiction to Facebook. And then I made the decision. I let my IRL friends know that I was leaving (deactivating my account). I e-mailed those that I wanted to keep in contact with and quietly exited the scene.
I got the response you might expect. WHY the hell would I do that? Wouldn't I miss my friends? Short answer, it seems, is ... NO. I don't miss them. In fact, I can barely remember who I had on my friends list to begin with.
Okay, so why do I say I (kind of) quit Facebook? I say I kind of quit because I still have an alternate account. On this account I'm free to be a member of all kinds of weird hippy groups, pagan
groups, and whatever else. I find support for my religion in a way that I never knew possible as a Solitary Pagan. I find community with like-minded people. Because of this freedom, the freedom to be myself, I've made a couple of good friends who know the important things there are to know about me (my personality, my likes and dislikes, and of course, my religious path) and they don't judge me for it. One in particular I consider a soul-sister (you know who you are!).
I still find myself wasting time on Facebook every now and then, but I don't waste nearly as much time as I used to. When the baby is awake, I'm off of the computer--with the exception of the ten minutes it's taken to write this blog. :)
So how is my life different now? I have more time. Oodles more time than I realized I had! It's very freeing. Once you realize there's this whole big world out there ready for you to explore everything is more exciting. The air is crisper, colors are more vivid, the sun shines a little brighter, the moon is more mysterious. The world is more beautiful. My baby is more beautiful. My life is more beautiful.
And that's my story for you. If you're thinking about giving up Facebook... well, maybe you should. If nothing else, do like I did. :)
