My family. My entire life. My reasons for living and breathing.
I had an entirely different post planned for today. One I was quite excited about, to be honest, and then some schmuck had to tag me in a Facebook video.
And my life was turned upside down.
I know it sounds like a bit of a stretch. Like I'm exaggerating or being a total drama queen. Life turned upside down? Please.
Until you make a judgment, watch this.
Watched it yet? Because that right there?
Moved me to the core.
A quick update about myself. I love social media. Or rather, I constantly check it for some reason. Not quite sure that "love" is the appropriate term, as when I look up the word "love" in the dictionary, this is what it says it means:
Love:
1) A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2) A feeling of warm, personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or
friend.
3) Sexual passion or desire.
4) A person whom toward love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.
Social media isn't a person, nor do I get a feeling of tender, passionate affection for it. I definitely don't feel a sexual passion or desire when I think about instagram or twitter and according to the dictionary definition, "love" is to be directed towards a "person, child or friend."
Every single social media outlet that I peruse is most definitely not a living, human being.
So by those standards, I don't "love" social media.
Without beating around the bush, I'm addicted to social media.
Addicted:
1) Devoted or given up to a practice or habit or to something psychologically or
physically habit forming.
And now let's cut out all the dictionary definitions and psychobabble BS and tell it like it really is:
So many of us are way too addicted and devoted to a measly piece of useless plastic that we ignore and neglect the most important things in our lives:
People.
Our people. Our mothers, fathers, grandparents, sons, daughters, friends, pets…real, live people.
I'll be honest, when I watched the aforementioned video, I cried. I felt the lump rise in my throat and about halfway through, I couldn't help it. I didn't care who was watching and I let the tears freely flow.
Sidenote: I never cry. Like, ever.
So that right there proves the immense effect some random Facebook video had on my life.
So. much. social. media.
And for what?
What exactly is all this social media adding to our lives? Adding to our very limited, very specific, very important lives?
I thought about this long and hard after I watched that life-changing Facebook video. I thought about my activity on instagram, how often I uploaded a photo and then checked back to see how many likes and comments it got. How often I tweeted something so clever in my mind and how much of my day was consumed with checking to see how many people re-tweeted my super clever tweet. I thought about my blog, my little baby money maker and how when I published a post that I was certain would go viral, how much time I spent out of my precious day checking my email and comments to see how successful it was.
Successful in the sense of my social media, that is.
When what I should be worried about is how successful I am in the sense of my children. My husband. My family. My real live life right in front of me.
My real, live people who care about me, who call when something is wrong, who would show up in a heartbeat if I needed them. My sister who would never begrudge me dropping my boys off at her house so I could get my hair done. My dad who almost always agrees to watch my kids at the last minute. My mom who goes above and beyond the call of "granny" and would do literally anything in this world for her grandkids. My friends who treat my kids as if they were their own and would give their life to protect them.
And then we have my blog.
This little place on the internets where I can come and spew anything and everything I want. And trust me, I'm not devaluing that at all. I love to write. I love to express my opinion and connect with other people and engage and converse and just let it all out once in a while.
It's therapeutic, it really is. It's enlightening, exciting, artistic, letting it all out externally…it's all of that. And I honestly love all of that, I do. But to what extent do I let it get to? I'm no big time blogger. I get a decent amount of traffic, but I'm average, at best, when it comes to the blogging world. And what does that even matter, anyway? I mean, what if I wasn't an average blogger, what if I was a super successful blogger who got millions of page views every single day? Would that make a difference in the quality of life that I lived? Would it make a difference in how important time with my kids was? My husband? My friends?
And then I start thinking about the quality of my life. I like my blog readers, but do I "love" them in the sense of the word? Sorry not sorry, but I don't have a tender, passionate, affection for my blog readers, and I most definitely don't feel a sense of sexual desire for them.
Do some of my blog comments make my panties wet with sheer bewilderment now and then? Sure. But that is neither here nor there.
And it makes me re-think what I want with this blog. With my instagram. My twitter. My facebook. And the hundreds of other social media apps that will appear before Kate Hudson does another romantic comedy.
What kind of time do I want to spend attending to my social media outlets?
So what if my blog comments dwindle to nothing?
Better that than my little boy's spirit when he asks his mom to "watch this" just one more time, yes?
So what if my readers lose interest in my blog?
Better that than my husband losing interest in me, right?
So what if the sponsors stop coming in?
Better that than my real life in-the-flesh friends stop asking me to real life in-the-flesh lunch dates, true?
I mean, what am I doing this all for anyway? The admiration of perfect strangers? Why am I tweeting my lunch? Why aren't I just enjoying it? I'm still having dinner with my friend Rachelle even if I don't instagram it. And it doesn't make it any less important just because my three thousand followers don't know about it. And then now, why is this even a legit talking point?!
Because social media has taken over.
Back to this blog. This space on the internets that takes up so much of my time. And for what? So strangers can tell me how funny I am? So people I have never met can express their admiration for me? I understand it may seem like I am coming across as a tad unappreciative, and for that I apologize.
I apologize just a tad. Like, I 20% apologize.
Because the other 80% of my life belongs to my kids and my husband. Actually, truth be told, the entire 100% should belong to them. My blog readers should fall somewhere in the negative. Harsh? Maybe. However, I would rather my blog readers feel the harshness than my own life and blood. I would rather my best blog commenter feel the harshness than my six year old son.
Yes, best blog commenter, my six year old son is tremendously more important than you.
I realize at this point it may seem like I am committing blog success suicide, but after watching that Facebook video, I really don't give a damn. I doubt it will happen, but if all my blog readers stop reading my blog indefinitely, I guess I will just have to close up shop and move on.
However, the reason I doubt it will happen isn't because I think I am some revolutionary whom the general public can't get enough of, no, rather I think most of my readers value life and family and themselves enough to see the bigger picture, and to realize what is most important.
And they also realize that if I don't respond to their comment on my blog, it's nothing personal. That I am instead reading a book to or playing Candyland with my children. Also, on that note, I don't need a mass amount of comments to validate my journey as a blogger. For one, I write for me, and for two, the stats don't lie, and even if I get only ten comments per post, I get seven hundred times that per page views, and page views are what I get paid for. Holla! (Shameless, I know. At least I don't try to hide it.)
Back to the issue at hand. That video. The one that changed my life.
The one where it made me realize social media is hindering my life, not helping it.
Hindering my life as in yes, I make a little bit of monies from this blog. But not much. Definitely not enough to sustain the amount of time I spend on it. Not enough to justify taking time away from my family to sit in front of this piece of metal slash plastic piece of equipment that really honestly and truly adds nothing of value to my life.
Besides, my husband works damn hard every single day to provide a good life for my kids and I. The least I owe him is a wife who is available and attentive during the hours he is home rather than being glued to my precious computer. My precious computer that provides nothing more than artificial esteem and kudos for what…a blog well written?
I'd much rather get legitimate esteem and kudos for a life well lived, from genuine people in my real life who know the real me and love me…like the real dictionary version of love…for me.
Yet so much, today is filled with false senses of security. False senses of acceptance, false senses of love and it all leads back to one thing: social media lies.
Social media. Everywhere you look, there it is. You're sitting in a restaurant and on your napkin is a hashtag should you wish to tweet your meal. God forbid you upload any photo to instagram without giving it the appropriate many tags to possibly increase your follower count. You're inundated by companies begging you to link to them on Facebook in exchange for a free something or other. Social media this, social media that. On and on, over and over. But what does it all really mean anyway?
Eye contact. Physical touch. Real life interactions. It's like that saying, "The best kiss is the one that has been exchanged a thousand times between the eyes before it reaches the lips." There is a reason it doesn't read "The best kiss is the one that has been exchanged a thousand times over facebook messaging sessions before it reaches the lips."
The real, in your face, physical life synergy has emotion. It's raw, real and organic.
It's funny. How many of us laugh and joke over our dads or grandparents finally learning how to use text messaging. Maybe they held out so long not because they were stupid imbeciles, but because they would rather talk face to face, or at the very least, pick up the phone and hear an actual voice on the other end.
Maybe our dads and grandparents started texting not because they were so behind on the times, but because it was the only way they could get in contact with us!
If that is how our grandparents feel they must communicate, how in the world will our children feel when it comes their time to experiment with the social media world? What are we teaching them!?
Of course, there is a happy medium when it comes to the social media world. Where we can share pictures and update Facebook statuses and write a blog post and not have it negatively affect our real life lives. But for me, it came to a point where I was honestly shocked when friends or family members would tell me they only had to charge their phones once every 2-3 days.
I mean, my eyes about rolled out of their sockets!
"Really??!!" I would say. "How is that even possible? I have to charge mine at least twice a day!"
I was on my phone every waking second. That's how it was possible.
"But what if my mom calls? I need to be available to answer her phone call!"
I can guarantee you, my mom cares much more about my family unity than if I get back to her within the hour.
I want to end this blog post with a story. A true story. A true story that happened right after I watched that fated Facebook video and after I ruminated on what it meant and how it was affecting my life.
I walked into my bedroom and saw my 12 year old lab laying on the floor. Same place as always, tired from her long day, but not as tired as if I had taken the time to throw the ball for her, which was one of her most favorite things to do.
I would usually just walk right past her, but this time, I kneeled down beside her, just like I used to do every single night before I went to bed, back before blogs and twitter and instagram. I started to talk to her affectionally and tenderly, with a definitely upbeat demeanor in my voice, and suddenly, out of habit, she turned over on her back and excitedly waited for me to scratch her belly.
Out of habit, even though I hadn't done so in months. I sat there and scratched her belly for quite some time, talking animal talk with things like "you like that? You do huh, oh yes that feels so good doesn't it Savi girl, oh yes you love getting that belly scratched don't you little girl?!"
I was connecting with my dog like I hadn't done in months.
And then I noticed both my boys were watching me, and my six year old say verbatim, "mom, why are you acting different?"
To which I responded with, "what do you mean?"
And he said, "you are being different. You don't usually act that way."
Sincerely confused, I said "Gunner, what are you talking about?"
And he said, "you never rub Savi's belly like that."
And right on cue, the tears spilled from my eyes.
My six year old saw me rubbing our dog's belly and it was significant enough for him to comment that I was acting "different" because I was doing something as simple as laying down on the floor with my 12 year old black lab and rubbing her belly.
What in the world are we teaching our kids these days?!
For me, after watching that video, I'm dedicated to teaching my kids about the real important things in life. Which aren't video games or having the best toys or showing off or a million other superficial aspects of life, but being genuine, nice, honest, loyal, truthful…and any words that show up in the thesaurus under "being a decent human being."
My kid is more important than my iPhone.
And I hope I never have to verbalize something so obvious again.