My Month Without Facebook

Alright, so it may be cheating a little, but this is preemptive post.  I am still completely off of Facebook until October but I actually couldn't wait to tell you how it went, er, is still going.

I had been feeling, overloaded.  Too much noise, too much time wasted, just too much.  It seems I barely had time to check up with my husband to see how he's doing- I didn't need to be spending time reading other people's statuses.  So, I got rid of it.  And something weird happened.

I didn't miss it.

And I started getting excited about all the other crap in my life I didn't need, either.  The poor VETS have been to my house three times in two weeks to pick up the stuff I'm cleaning out of my basement.  We're on a first name basis.  They know where the coffee machine is.  I've even let go of books, people.  Books.  And clothes.  Like, all of them.  All of a sudden I was overwhelmed with the less is more, last shall be first and I gave everything away.  Literally.  Almost everything.

And then I paired down my shopping list as I thought of all the people in the world and what they eat, or don't have to eat, daily.  And I stopped just, "popping in" to Whole Foods for $45,880.00 worth of one fillet of fish and a piece of cheese and cooked what we had (which means my husband ate meatballs made out of eggplant this week, see earlier post).

I started thinking about all the time I freed up by not checking social media and started reading my Bible.  And other stuff.  Like, really good stuff.  And praying.  Not like I usually do with ceremony and a list and a system : Thanksgiving, Petition, Praise and started just TALKING.  Like we were pals.  I am 31.  It took me a while to catch on that this was what Jesus was talking about.

I started crying about orphans and widows and the lost and the hungry and I gave more clothes and food away.  I can't walk through Penn Station without crying anymore, and though I pretty much fit in with everyone else, this gives me little comfort.  I'm there twice a day, three times a week.  That's a lot of crying, folks.

I began getting rid of other apps on my phone and started cleaning the windows in the kitchen and began thanking Jesus for weird things like bees and polar bears and headbands for little girls.

In short, I became a raving lunatic.  And then I read Jen Hatmaker's Seven on the train on the way home in one sitting and cried all over again how she stole my idea and put it in a book way before I ever thought about it but I'm so glad she did and then I cried all over again.

One month fasting from social media and I have become a tree-hugging, Bible-reading, broken people loving maniac looking to adopt/take home/love on/feed delicious meals every man/woman/child in a 5 foot radius.

I'm not going to promise I'll never go back to it, but man has life been good without it.

P.S. I'm sure some of you who were directed to this blog via Facebook are like, "Um, what is she talking about?????"  To clarify: the blog is automatically published to Facebook, my fast has been to stay away from the Facebook page itself.  Even though the blog has posted, I have only done so through the blog's site and have not visited the Facebook page since the last day of August.