As I mentioned in my post yesterday I have been making a serious conscious effort to not share everything on Facebook. For someone that had been used to posting several personal posts a day, it is hard. It is a conscious choice and I am not bound by it. If I want to start sharing again, in the way I used to, I can do it any time…or not.

Two things happened to me today that would have sparked posts on Facebook, but instead I will write about them in this forum.

For those of you who “follow” me, you know that earlier this year I had a mango vs. thumb battle in which thumb lost badly. I did post photos and my visit to the McKenzie Health ER department that my mother had to drive me to because it was a very bad slice through my thumb.

One of the not so funny parts of that event was that I didn’t have band aids in my apartment. The concierge came up with a first aid kit but wouldn’t enter my suite, so there we were, standing in the hallway while she was trying to stop the bleeding (unsuccessfully). Lesson learned, I now have a first aid kit and band aids. Which came in handy this morning.

I didn’t sleep well last night and was very tired this morning while making my lunch for work. I have been making huge salads for lunch every day, combined with homemade salad dressing. While cutting my cucumber…well, I don’t really want gross anyone out, but let’s just say, my “peter pointer” finger got in the way of the slicing. Thankfully an ER visit was not needed, but needless to say, I had band aids and poly sporin and have made use of both at work today. I am afraid to take the band aid off. I will wait until I get home tonight.

Fast forward to lunch time. I am sitting at my desk, enjoying my beautiful salad I made this morning and of course I dropped two pieces of lettuce on my brand new, first time worn satin top. Yes, if you know how to get oil stains out, I would love some advice on that. Stains are not something new to me, but I am in an office and putting water on my new shirt doesn’t really look that attractive.

Lunch time over…salad was very good. Need to find new things to add to my salad. My current additions are feta cheese and sunflower seeds. Shoot some ideas my way.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate it.

L

Have you ever been told a piece of “insider” scoop, something you were going to find out about, but found out before it went public, like someone is pregnant, for example? Or that someone has a new job? Has that piece of information ever been followed up with, “but don’t post anything on Facebook?” Well, it has happened to me. I was actually offended by the follow-up comment.  Why would I ever post on MY Facebook feed, or on someone else’s information that I knew wasn’t public knowledge? Facebook is very public, and people often overshare very personal information. I have shared a lot of information in the past, but nothing that was private or personal that I didn’t want discussed in a public forum. There is a fine line.

Yes, if you know me, you know that I am very active on Facebook, or used to be. Now that I look back on it, I wasn’t one of the people who updated their status every time I went to the bathroom, but I did have several updates a day, on top of sharing photos, interesting articles, etc.

I have said this before, several months ago a friend called me that I hadn’t spoken to in a while. She asked how I was and then followed it up with, “I know everything about you from Facebook.” My reply was, “You know about my Facebook life, you don’t know about my real life. They are very different.”

And then I decided it was time to take a break. It has been about six weeks now, and I have just started posting more regularly, but for the most part, still just keeping it to myself.

I even went on vacation. Did you know that? No, you probably didn’t. I didn’t check in at the airport, or the hotel, or post any of my food photos that everyone loves so much. I am not saying I didn’t check Facebook from my room at the end or start of the day, but I really “unplugged” and enjoyed my time away. I was in St. Maarten and if you have been there before you know what I mean when I say it was a slice of paradise.

Go back and think about a time (not that far back), before Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, texts, bbm, whatsapp. Think about how you would have told someone information, shared good news, bad news, social plans, birthday parties. You either got a phone call or a written invitation, and even further back, telegrams. People shared what they wanted you to know. Period.

And now, friends get ‘annoyed’ with you that they heard something about you from someone else and not from you. Maybe I wasn’t ready to share my information with the rest of the people in my life. Maybe I need to accept my own changes in my own time, and get in touch with different people in my life when I was ready.

The news was my news. It was about me, not about the person who was disappointed that they didn’t hear the information from me directly. It gave me time to think about a lot of things. Things I have learned, that you don’t really need to share your ‘changes’ in your life until you want.

It is YOUR life. You are the writer, director, producer and star of your own show. You may have permanent cast members in your show, and maybe some of them are just guest stars and are only in a few episodes. The good news is you get to choose to extend their contract or let them out if they are not longer part of the plot line.

This forum, writing about my story seems to make sense to me.