Social Media?

Social media is tremendously strange and there are serious problems with the idea of creating an online persona. And yet I love, love, love Facebook. Here are some thoughts:

Tim and I had a four-day adventure where we drove up Highway 101 along the coast, continued into Oregon, across Southern Oregon, and then back down Highway 5 home. I Facebooked the whole trip, posting pictures and checking in at restaurants and happily sharing our experience. To see Facebook, we had an idyllic getaway. And believe me, we did have fun. Here’s what I didn’t post that we dealt with while we were gone:

• Plumbing issues at my parents house
• Plumbing issues at our house
• Credit card fraud (someone was using our card in New Jersey?)
• Caregiver issues (big ones)
• Caregiver issues (smaller ones)
• Car troubles (a relative)

No, we didn’t have to come home. But dealing with this kind of stuff is never easy. I have a new coping method for intense fear and anxiety — burpees. There were two times on the trip where I got out of the car (because you can’t do burpees in a Prius) and did burpees because I needed to try to stop the internal downward spiral. It helped.

I read an article about how young people are experiencing a lot of depression as they compare their lives to the lives of people they see on social media. This makes me think of the idea that you can’t compare your insides to someone else’s outsides, because it’s not a fair comparison. Certainly there will always be people who need to make themselves look better than the rest. But from my heart, I post positive things because that’s where I want to focus my attention. And I posted details of the trip because I have a lot of Northern CA friends, and I want them to do what we did, because it was so much fun. I want my kids to make the same trip (but perhaps they’ll camp instead of staying at hotels) so they can see the giant redwoods and experience the wind at the lighthouse and then we can remember together what we’ve done. I’m told that what other people think of me is none of my business. And most of the time I can remember that.

(abrupt subject change)

My dad fell yesterday afternoon. (He’s at home and on the mend with some minor and semi-minor injuries.) We were with him in the emergency room last night. Friday night in the ER is quite the people watching experience. So is Friday night at the all-night pharmacy, where we got his pain meds filled. I didn’t check in on Facebook as this was happening.

Tomorrow we get to celebrate a longtime friend’s 50th birthday by white-water rafting down the middle fork of the American River. I might check in and post pictures. But the picture on Facebook is never the complete picture.

Here’s a quote I love:

Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.