Goodbye, Facebook.

A few days ago, I did something I’ve been dreaming about for awhile. I deactivated my Facebook.

I’m not going to get super preachy about it or anything, but so far it has been really good for me.

Madeleine L’Engle once wrote (in regards to Lent) that if it’s worth giving up for 40 days, it’s worth giving up once-for-all. Guess what I tend to give up for Lent? Facebook. The time finally came to give it up. There is no time limit, no list of things I want to accomplish before I activate my account or anything.

I just want to experience the life that is before me. I want to be friends with people who invest time in me, I want to be where I am wholly and completely, and I want to treasure the moments of my life, and evaluating them by “likes” and “comments” and “shares” tends to rob them of their value.

and one thing I’ve struggled with so much, time and time again, is my blog. This is what my blog is: my treasure box. It is a treasures of my life collecting place. Sometimes that is a bunch of words, and sometimes it is a brief moment.

A few weeks ago, on a day when I remember feeling especially close to deactivating my Facebook account, I pulled over on the side of the road and sat in the middle of it, thinking about life.

and when I got up to get back in my car, I noticed this deadish tree I’d pulled over next to. Right next to the road, nothing at all like it anywhere nearby. It was just this dead plant. and I felt the weight of John Mayer’s words:

 

and I’m not a horrible person, but I know that I am not living the full life God has in store for me. Constantly comparing my life to the life of other’s, being judgmental and insecure and angry at the hands of a stupid social media site is not who I want to be, nor who God created me to be.

So that’s that. That is the short-winded version of why I dropped off the Facebook grid. and I look forward to adding the treasures of a slow, disconnected life to my little internet treasure box.