It's been almost 2 years since I have written here on this blog. Reasons, you might wonder? Well, the typical ones- jobs, school, kids, life, etc. It felt like a chore to write on here. But now, I am thinking about bringing it back. Reasons for this, again you might wonder? Well, I'll be honest. I am kinda (and by kinda, I mean really, really, really) tired of Facebook. But before anyone writes this off as a "holier than thou" post, please hear me out. I am tired of Facebook for what it makes me feel like. After looking at, I truly feel like less of a mom, not a skinny enough (or skinny at all) person, not beautiful, and sometimes not worthy. I truly am jealous of other people's vacation, friends, and apparent good times that they are having. I struggled with comparison long before Facebook even came into existence, and only recently have I been willing to say I struggle with it even more now with Facebook. I totally understand that everyone is different- some people like it to see pictures of their friends and family, but for me looking at pictures reminds me of what I am "missing out on" or that other people are getting together and I am not one of those people. I have also been challenged to think about why I want to post pictures. and again, I will be honest. I want people to see what I am up to (the really hip and cool things that we do), how cute our kids are, what random thing I have accomplished. and I want them to think I am cool enough to be liked, be their friend, be worthy of their admiring. And let me tell you, this is not a fun way to live. And just like my struggles with comparison before Facebook, I have struggled for acceptance long before Facebook. I can remember in high school just wanting to be accepted for who I was, but never feeling like who I was was good enough. I always thought I needed to be prettier, faster, skinnier, funnier, cooler (sensing a theme here!?!) and discontentedness (is that a word? the right word?) sprung up and has taken a pretty firm root in my life. Even to this day, I still struggle with not feeling good enough. By whatever standard that is- as a wife, mom, friend, employee, athlete, woman, daughter, etc. The list could go on. But I have discovered that Facebook makes it worse. Everyday a new "article" pops up telling me I need to do this to be a better mom. The next day, another article says I need to actually do the exact opposite to be a good mom. Pictures of hip and cool people doing hip and cool things without me fill my feed. and more not good feelings arise. So I have decided over the past few weeks that I am done. At least with Facebook. For some reason, Instagram doesn't bother me as much, so I am not completely done there. Maybe just more limited :)
But that leaves me still with a desire for an outlet- an outlet of a place to say what's going on in our lives, post a picture or two and update family and friends. And for some reason, my blog feels better. I don't know if anyone will read it anymore, but maybe that's the point. It doesn't matter who sees it, cause I don't want to be posting based on what other people will think. I want to post because I want to post.
So I am going to give it a try on here for a little while and see what I think :)
2 comments:
Welcome back to the Internet.
I'm glad you're thinking of posting more here! I get the desire to go off facebook. I dealt with that by unfollowing everyone who made me feel inferior/angry (eg, if you disagree with me about politics or vaccines, I don't want you in my news feed. I've got enough drama in my life already!), and it really did help. One thing YOU have going for you is that you live where you grew up, so you can get away with not being on facebook and still keep up with most of your friends, right? I've found that moving six times since college and living in perhaps the most superficial state in the US has made me very grateful for facebook, especially since most of my friends don't blog regularly the way I do. I go on facebook to watch my friends' kids grow up, because I don't get to see them in person nearly as much as I'd like! I was extremely lonely our first couple of years here and have only stopped hating Cali in the past year, so facebook was my window into my past life where kingdom groups were welcoming, churches were friendly, and people cared about me and my kids. People (not you here) criticize facebook for being this unnatural virtual world, but for a couple years there, virtual friends were better than no friends at all. Now that we finally have a church home and are making real friends, I'm finding that I'm on facebook less. I'm actually not even facebook friends with my real life friends here, because we SEE each other and don't need to see pictures of each other. All of this is really a long way of saying that I agree that you're not in a situation where facebook fills some kind of need for you, so good for you scaling back! I will be reading here and looking forward to cute pictures of your kids and the fun (and mundane) things you guys are doing! =)
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