My Beef with Facebook

I have been thinking about starting a blog for quite sometime.  I just had to sort through some personal issues I have with sharing information about myself.  I struggle with not wanting to be too shallow and on the other hand I don't want the masses to know too much.  I feel like a blog might be a way for me to share a little bit about my life but I can proof read before hitting the "publish" button.


The title of my first entry is a little deceiving because this is a lot more about my own feelings then it is about my dislike for Facebook.  In November of 2011 I went off Facebook because I felt like it was distracting me from more important tasks in my day.  It was only after going off that I realized the tremendous pressure that Facebook brought into my life.  I know that sounds a wee dramatic but I had this amazing sense of relief when I no longer had to keep track of the masses.  Let me explain.


When I was 18......11 years ago now, I moved to Jamaica which would have been roughly the 20th move in my life.  I came to Montego Bay to go to Bible College for what I believed to be a 4 month adventure and my beginning to tour the huge world we live in.  I didn't know at the time it was my stop.  I met my husband, and we got married almost 4 years later.  This was it, we felt like God had called us to stay on this tiny island.  I had no consistent access to my life back home.  I would pay to sit at stuffy internet cafe's with dial up slower then we can now fathom.  There were times I could afford half an hour and I spent most of that time watching the word "loading" on the screen.  It just was not a very effecient use of my time or money.  I slowly felt like I lost touch with people that mattered so much to me.  


In January 2006, Dwight and I moved to a bigger community, which seemed like metropolis in comparison the fishing village we were living in before.  Mandeville was going to be the place I finally settled down.  I knew it.  I asked God for it.  I needed a home.  We finally got internet and one day in 2007 someone told me of this amazing thing called Facebook.  I signed my life away and within days I realized the trail of relationships I had left behind.  It was incredible to come on every morning and see that someone else had found me on my island!!  Friends from Chilliwack B.C, where I spent my childhood years.  Friends from Princeton and Eckville, Red Deer and Springbrook!  Simply amazing.


Anyway I don't want to drag this out but over the years on Facebook I started to see that I was incapable of maintaining all these relationships.  I would get messages and have time just to read them before I would have to sign off and go on with life here.  I learned people don't like it when you don't reply. I have come to terms with the fact that I am an inadequate Facebook friend.  


Another reason for that great sense of releif after quitting was that it was hard for me to see life unfold in Canada and know I was missing it.  My family, my nieces and nephews, my friends having babies, or getting married.  Pictures of kids playing in parks where people don't poop in the tunnel or steal the swings.  I know that's not my life anymore but I still miss it.  As much as I thank God everyday for all he has blessed me with, there is still apart of me that is simply Canadian and there are days where I wonder what my life would be like there.  I want to be where God wants me to be and I have peace knowing that I am.  It doesn't make it easy.  


I'm writing this blog so I can share with others both near and far, a little about my life.