So Long Facebook

This week I've deleted my facebook account. It has been liberating.  Lucy, Oliver and Nathan when  you read this, No doubt Facebook or some other form of social media will still be around unless of course I make good on my dream and whisk you off to live out the rest of your childhood on Great Barrier Island- electricity free. Wow, imagine! Now that would be liberating, homeschooling you in my togs.

But I want you to know my journey with Facebook, because it has been a long one and for you to know that for the longest time I was one of it's biggest fans. It was and is a phenomena that has connected billions of people around the world and I was proud of the way that I could still keep in contact with people I went to primary school with. As a stay at home mum it was in a lot of ways my lifeline with the outside world and I'm sure it's because of it that I've never felt lonely in this season of my life at home with you kids.  The banter back and forth on it I compared with the conversations I would have around the photocopier at work or over a biscuit in the staff room. I have loved it!

About a year ago, a friend let me know that she was deleting her facebook account. I thought she was stupid. I actually was going to write a post about it, how I thought facebook had it's place and how it brought people together and how as a busy mum, was I expected to keep in contact with her if not by facebook?  Surely she didn't intend to email? Call? Write? With her living in Hamilton I resigned myself to the fact that we would loose touch and was actually kinda angry with her in a weird way that she had these convictions. Well it turns out that she did intend to email, call, write and even visit, driving 4 hours to connect- face to face. Turns out busy mama's can do it.

I became aware of my obsession/addiction to facebook at the beginning of the year when I wrote these resolutions. For the most part, Ive been good at keeping them. Then I find this picture that Lucy has drawn of me. I was horrified that this is how she saw me. My back to her in front of a computer.

It prompted me to do two things,
1. Enrol Lucy in Art class, This girl has some killer perspective at such an early age.
2. Work out where my biggest time wasters were on the computer and get rid.

I decided to keep the blog as this is such a welcome outlet for me and apart from some late nights, it isn't the culprit. Trade me is up there in the amount of hours it can suck from me, but that is more a once and a while fix. Like an alcoholic or an addict I owned up to the fact that facebook was my daily addiction. Because it has been such a loyal friend all these years, I morned a bit for what I knew I needed to do.

Our computer is right in the dinning room. I pass it going through the lounge into the kitchen. It is right in the heart of our home. It is witness to all our living going on around it. There are other things I would like to be at the heart of our home instead. A Bible for starters, but this was essentially a practical move as there was nowhere else to put the computer. On Monday we had some real estate agents come to give us some tips on how to present our home when it comes time to put it on the market. One of their suggestions was to get rid of the computer desk in the dinning area to un clutter the space. I swear when they said it a sweet "Yes please hallelujah" rang out from inside me. It is time. Not just to unclutter the dinning room but all the clutter in my head.

You see, here's the thing. By nature I am a rescuer, I blame my mother, she is one too. And because of this I find it hard not to get involved if I see a need. With facebook, It manifests itself by someone innocently posting on their wall that they are sick or had a bad night waking to toddlers and bam,  I feel this burden instantly to babysit or drop around a meal. Someone posts a controversial status update on their wall which gets attacked by those not agreeing and I have this burden to jump in to the debate and defend the one getting attacked. Facebook alerts me to people's birthdays and when normally I would have naturally lost touch with a someone, the reminder of their birthday has me browsing shops wondering on a good gift for them.  I covet peoples holiday photos and can then spend hours researching where I'd like to go on holiday. Someone asks a question and I feel rude not answering so can't stop thinking about it until I do. I might post a status, the one about the neighbour's dog for example and then when I should be cooking dinner, I am back and forth to the computer seeing who has commented and what they've said. One night I even caught myself stalking my dentist on it to see if he was single and if so who I could set him up with. Now not all of this is bad. Well that last one was, but I'm not saying YOU should kiss facebook goodbye, Most people are very disciplined with it. But for me all those burdens aren't healthy or a productive use of my time. I constantly felt OVERWHELMED. I know it's crazy but I literally felt a burden to invest, maintain and pump time and dialogue into several hundred friendships each day. My friend Kate said it well today when she said "You can make your world bigger than it needs to be." Amen Kate. Amen.

When I told Marcus I was thinking about deleting my facebook account. He said, "But how will you keep up with everyone's news?" It's true, I won't know what everyone is doing/thinking all the time but then I realised, I  don't need to. I'll be free. Free from worry about other peoples lives and free to focus on these 4 lives within these walls that need me the most. I'm not going all exclusive brethren. I will still blog, will still have email and text and I'm seeing how a business facebook page goes that is a place to find me but little else. Can't believe it's taken me this long.

So farewell Facebook, I'm looking forward to spending more face to face time with people and have Lucy draw me face on instead.