I'd been thinking for a while that I wanted to take a step back from social media. It was eating up too much space in my head and too many hours in my day. At the same time the idea of stepping away seemed daunting. What about all the stuff I would miss if I took a break??
Last Saturday after choir practice I noticed that there was no line at the confessional. I slipped in and talked about my social media issues: the way I'd stayed up too late the night before, scrolling angrily through the Facebook page of the friend most likely to raise my blood pressure. The way I get all self-righteous and snarky. The ongoing low-level anger. The unwillingness to give any of that up, even in the presence of what felt like a nudge from the Holy Spirit. "So I am here seeking grace," I said, with low expectations. Afterward in the Adoration chapel I opened up my journal. In all caps I wrote "OKAY 7 DAYS NO FB NO TWITTER."
I thought it would be painful. I kept waiting for it to get painful. But instead it has just been...delightful. I got up and ran in the cool of the morning. I read hundreds of pages of Harry Potter to Stella. I finished knitting another sweater. I made some headway on the email backlog, and got the van's oil changed (without thinking twelve separate times "I should get the van's oil changed"; I just went and did it), and planned/executed a half-birthday celebration, and texted the guy (finally) about the kitchen/bath remodel, and drove kids all over creation for summer activities, and played my violin for the first time in years, and made good progress on my research while also not spending too many hours in the office, and figured out a painless way to use all the CSA radishes*, and read Pickwick in the sunshine at the pool. I'll stop there but I could keep going.
*Blitz them in the food processor. Cook them down with the taco meat. Really, I promise.
Coincidentally (or not), I had an in-person dinner with local friends on the calendar for this week. I knew that one of them was struggling, but I only knew what was going on with the others from social media posts. I walked home from that dinner thinking about how poorly social media posts align with reality. I mean, it's not like any of them were making stuff up on social media. It's just that real life is three-dimensional, and social media posts squish that down so it will fit on a two-dimensional screen. And we need people to see the real us, our whole selves. Remember in A Wrinkle In Time, how the kids couldn't breathe freely on a two-dimensional planet? Maybe there's a Lesson there.
OH NO, that sounds super-sanctimonious. I am sorry for being preachy but I also can't bring myself to delete it.
I felt cautious about saying, "I am fasting from social media." When I wanted to tell Elwood last night about how lovely it had been I said, "Wait, I have to go in the closet."
"Jamie," queried the ever-patient Elwood, "why are you in our closet?"
"Because Jesus! Prayer! Fasting! Closets!" But then I came out, because I am weird enough to shout from inside the closet but not quite weird enough to stay there and converse.
So. It feels a little weird to trumpet my fast on the internet, but I am doing so as an invitation, not a boast. I am going to re-up for another week. Want to join me?
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