“Who are you when no one’s watching?”
That’s a question I ask myself quite regularly. Usually whenever I catch myself doing something out of the ordinary. I ask myself why I did it, or why I didn’t do it. Keeping myself in check.
Last night I removed all but one friend from my Facebook account, my mother, because we live so far apart and I always enjoy the photos she shares of her and my dad and my hometown. Makes a girl a little less homesick. I told all of my other Facebook ‘friends’ how to contact me if they wanted to, it remains to be seen whether or not they put in the effort. Telling.
After 10 years on Facebook, thousands of posts and hundreds of pictures, I finally had enough. I had been thinking about terminating my account for some time, but I have to keep it because it’s linked to pages and groups I manage for employment. So this was the best solution I could find.
“Binge” was the theme of last night. I also removed myself from Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, and deleted my YouTube channel. Sometime down the road I may regret some of my choices, but I doubt it. You don’t realize how much being online takes over your life. What the kicker was for me, the straw that broke the camels’ back, was waiting three hours in front of the screen for someone to reply to a message (while I was doing other things online of course) and not realizing so much time had even passed. How completely pathetic that I waited three hours for someone to answer my question when I could have called them. That’s how hypnotic it has become.
Admittedly, shamefully, I felt like the things I was posting were attention seeking and that’s not how I want to be seen. I’ve had friends and family members ask me why I decided to leave so much of this behind when it is such a huge part of who I am… my only response? It’s not who I want to be anymore.
The things that remain are this: my blog and one email address.
I’ve got to tell you. I’m breathing a little easier.
M.
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