I first heard about it senior year in college. I'd be standing in line in the cafeteria to pay for lunch when I would hear the girl in front of me say to her friend, "I found so many people from high school on Facebook. I thought I'd never see some of them again!"
I'd go to class and hear someone say, "I used to play with my neighbor every day until we were ten. Then she moved away and I never saw her again, but I just found her on Facebook!"
After overhearing a handful of these conversations, I decided to create a Facebook account. It was still only for people with .edu email addresses. You couldn't post statuses yet, but you could choose how you were feeling from a drop down list of emotions. My first "status update" about Facebook was, in fact, made on AOL Instant Messenger. I informed my friends that I'd joined after hearing about it so many times around campus.
How it has changed.
I like Facebook for two main reasons. The first is that I can stay in touch with family in a way that I couldn't before. We "see" each other more often, thanks to Facebook. It does not replace real life interactions, but it keeps me updated on family news. The second reason is that it helps me feel more connected in general, especially this year. As a new stay at home mom in a new state in the dead of winter, Facebook provided a daily reminder that other people were out there, kept me connected to friends I'd left behind, and kept me in touch with other moms.
I was seriously hoping the active Facebook mom community I had back home would be here, too. I was disappointed to find it lacking. The majority of people I've met here avoid Facebook or use it sparingly (and I can understand that). I wonder if it'll be more active in our new town.
I do wonder what life would be like without it. I have occasionally thought about cutting Facebook out of my life. Like many others, I also fall victim to the comparison game. I see those status updates and pictures that make so-and-so's life look perfect, and I get jealous. For a while, it contributed heavily to my homesickness. I almost cut Facebook out at that point. Almost. Without it, I wouldn't have nearly as many people to compare to myself. I might devote the time I spend reading status updates to something more important.
(Side note: before Facebook, I devoted a lot of time to reading books. I'm a huge advocate of reading, but I don't know that it's more important than other things I *could* be doing instead. I kind of think I'd go back to reading more in lieu of Facebook...)
As I'm writing this, I'm thinking that the mom connection is currently the strongest reason I stay on Facebook. I don't want to repeat all the mom bloggers out there, but I probably will, because staying home is what I've known this past year and it is much harder than I thought it would be. I was not prepared for the overwhelming sense of isolation and boredom I have experienced. I have found that I desperately want to be out of our apartment at least once day. I am not good at sitting on the floor and playing with my child for hours on end. I WANT to be good at it, but mostly I feel like I'll go crazy. As I've shared before, he's not good with staying home for hours on end, either...but I still feel so hugely isolated. I can't quite nail it down. We go to MOPS and play dates and small group and story time and parks and church, but it never feels like enough. At home, we do chores and meals and take walks (and I can't wait till we have a house again with space for projects and messes), but I still feel like I'm stuck and alone and bored. To bring this back to Facebook, seeing all the other moms I know post similar thoughts and feelings helps me quite a bit.
Maybe it's just the "mommy trenches" that I hear about...toddler life is trying, after all. Maybe this is just where God has me, allowing me to experience this stuff for some reason I don't yet know. Or, maybe I need therapy. Haha. But, as for Facebook, I plan to stick with it for now.
