Saying Goodbye to Facebook

December 29, 2008 "I really don't get all the hype about facebook."

But apparently, after that, I got sucked into.

But over the last few months, I have questioned why I waste so much time there. I tell myself, I'll only check it once a day. But like an addiction, I can't stop myself. Every time I have a second at work, I'm on it. Even though nothing has changed since I was on 20 minutes earlier. At home, every time I walk by the computer, I find myself logging on. I went through a phase where I played games, like Farmville. There's a time waster like no other. Even the hubs has mentioned a few times I don't need to be on facebook. I think that was his kind way of saying, I waste too much time there. And he's right; when he's online, I get mad that he isn't spending time with me. I just need to remember that works both ways.

And don't start me on the drama! I have several friends that should have "unfriended" me based simply on the fact I never commented on their stuff when they said "going through the list, comment if you don't want deleted." And yet, the next day, we were still friends. Weird.

Here's a secret I've been trying to keep to myself; I'm been fighting depression for a few months. I'm hoping its just the winter blues and everything will get better in the spring. But one day, when it was bad, I noticed, it always got worse when I got online. Then I noticed a pattern. The more time I spent online, the more depressed I got.

This is true of both Facebook and Blogger. So I thought about quitting all online activity. Immediately, my heart cried out "not your blog!" And I think its right. Sometimes, it doesn't feel worth it because our family is small, but this blog was a lifeline for me through our infertility. Being able to blog about what we do makes me feel important. One day, my mom mentioned I don't blog as much and she misses that. That made my heart soar. Its hard to feel important because we didn't give our families grandkids, but to know that my mom enjoys my blog helps take that sting away. So the blog is safe.

But Facebook....

One particularly depressing day, I threw a fit and deactivated my account. But then I didn't want to miss pictures of my nephews, so I set up a different account and only sent out 2 friendship requests to the 2 people I didn't think I could live without. Then I got a request from another dear friend. That made me realize, there would be more requests, and if I was going to accept them, I might as well go back to my old account.

So I did, but only after my friends list had a massacre. I hacked my list from 180 friends to a mere 43. I'm not the kind of person that accepted every single request, but still, I had people on there I didn't know. So I cut them. And I cut the ones I wasn't close with. I thought, if we could be good friends in real life, they are worth knowing just online. Not that the people I cut, I didn't like. I just realized our lives were different enough, that I don't know we would be great "real friends".

I thought this would be good enough. But, it was still too addicting, therefore too time wasting. I got sick of all the posters, or memes, or whatever they are called. I felt like people don't even update anymore, they just share political posts, funnies, and other such things. When they do an actual post, its just drama.

So I decided I want off. For real this time. Not even a dummy account to see nephew pictures. Besides, they are much better in real life. My sister and I have grown closer the last few months so I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything anyways.

So once again, I shut down my account.

Then 3 days later, I get a phone call at work. That isn't a big deal. The big deal was, I almost missed out on a baby shower I really want to go to, simply because they couldn't find me on facebook to invite me. I'm so glad she remembered where I work. But then I worried about what else I might miss out on.

For me, the solution was to log on, one last time and send a message. I didn't want to do it on my wall because I didn't want it to feel like a cry for attention. Of those 43 friends, I only message a couple to let them know how to contact me. I didn't send it to everyone because I know most know how to track me down through work or family. I just wanted to leave quietly.

And I wasn't going to blog about it because, again, I don't want this to be a pity cry like those that drove me nuts on facebook. But I feel like I need to officially say goodbye to facebook or it will always haunt me. Even now, I question myself "can I really quit forever?"

I guess I have no way of knowing. I can see the benefits of it. I tracked down people I hadn't seen in years and was able to reconnect. It was easy to give an update on life or other happenings. I even had friends ask me to send a message to family members because they themselves, were not on facebook.

But overall, its just not a place I want to be anymore. When I shut it down this last time, I noticed just how addicting it was. Every 20ish minutes, I found myself thinking "oh, I should check facebook."And its not because I hadn't been on for a day. Its because that had become my daily lifestyle.

Facebook, its not a life changing thing for me. I don't need it in my life. It might be harder to keep in contact with some people, but I need to leave to make my life easier and happier.

Besides, this blog isn't going anywhere. And I've always shared more of myself here then I ever did on facebook.

Good bye Facebook. May you rest in peace. Or not, I've seen the drama that goes on there.