Facebook Fast

The church that Patrick and I attend is encouraging a fast. Many of our friends and much of the congregation are taking on a 21 day challenge where they will eat only fruits and vegetables and drink only water. The idea emulates Jesus’ 40 day fast in the dessert where He drank only water. In that time, Jesus was tempted three times by the devil. I’m sure our friends will be tempted even more than that as we are much weaker than Jesus and much easier targets by the enemy.

Maybe I’m using pregnancy as an excuse, but we are not participating in this particular fast. I just feel as though giving up food while pregnant isn’t safe for me or my baby (Not too sure what Patrick’s excuse is – haha!) I did my research, and I was surprised to find that many women do participate in fasts while pregnant. Studies are unclear as to whether it is safe or not, which is a risk I don’t want to take!

While we won’t be giving up food for 21 days, we will be giving up Facebook. Ugh, I have such a love-hate relationship with Facebook! I used to love it, but anymore, I hate it…but can’t quite give it up. Lets reminisce…

Back in 2004, I was a college Freshman at Robert Morris University. There was this new site sweeping the internet called Facebook. It was for college students only, and pretty much your school wasn’t cool until it got the invite in. I didn’t know what Facebook was all about, but I took my friends advise and wrote an e-mail asking for RMU to have access after hearing how “cool” it was. Within days, Bobby Mo was in…to this day I’m not sure if my letter really had any influence or not, but I felt like it did, and that made me feel instantly cool! I was one of the first students on campus to have a profile and quickly spread the word about it to all my friends.

In the beginning, it was thefacebook.com. You made a profile, you had one photo showcasing who you were, and you had a wall….that was it. People actually read each others profiles, learning more about their friends like which bands they were into and what their favorite quotes were. I question if I even have a profile now…if I do, it hasn’t been updated in quite some time! Friends would write on your wall just to say how thankful they were for your friendship, or how much you were missed if you were at different schools. Now I feel like I only get a wall post if it’s my Birthday! My wall now, much like every other wall I’m sure, is filled with my own posts. What once was such a genuine act of friendship is now filled with so much self-indulgence. I’m as guilty as the next…possibly even more so in some cases.

As Facebook evolved, it became just facebook.com, making it that much easier to subconsciously sign in and waste time in between classes. Next we could add photos and tag friends to them – making it a time capsule of sorts of our best college days. This is where Facebook really has it’s hook in me! I have these precious memories saved nowhere else, so for that reason alone I will probably always have an account.

Then Facebook became the “New Facebook” where we now had a news feed with status updates (Insert self-indulgence…”status” update…c’mon!) I remember having conversations with friends about it…we hated the “New” Facebook, until we all jumped on board and started making our own status’.

The beginning of the end of my love for Facebook was when they opened it up to the general public though. Now I could be Facebook friends with my mom…weird! Sorry Mom, truth! Now everything we said (thanks status updates!) and did (thanks photos!) could be held against us. As we searched for future employers, our future employers searched our Facebook pages to see if we were having too much fun (like they hadn’t done the same in college!)

Today, Facebook is just one big hot mess to me. We’ve got ads on the side promoting things we’re supposedly really into. It’s now suggesting friends for me (most of which I have NO CLUE who they are!) I get loads of invites to play games that I don’t want to play, and it constantly wants to update my friends about the games I am playing (Annoying! They don’t need to know what I’m doing ALL the time!). Weirdly enough, my Facebook even got hacked recently adding to the headache of what it’s become. The hacker was on my account actually chatting with my friends telling them that “I” found this awful photo of them and in turn also hacking into their account. Like I said, one big hot mess!

Patrick and I have stepped away from Facebook before. Most recently we did so for the month of July, and it was one of the best things we could have done for our marriage and our family. With our new-found free time, we started to play with our son more, and actually carved out dates for ourselves. We started to listen to each other more, and we had more deep and meaningful conversations. It was nice! We actually really liked life outside of Facebook, but of course we fell back into it after the month was over.

I’m not saying life with Facebook is bad for us. It’s not bad by any means, but it is different. When we saw an opportunity to be Facebook-less again, we mutually took it, and I know that once again it will be good for us. One day this month, our second baby is going to be joining us. Our lives are once again about to change drastically. I really just want to savor these last days together as a family of three! I want us to enjoy this time together before its whole dynamic changes. Most of all, I want Beau to feel so loved! His whole little world is about to change and I want him to know that although things are going to be different, he’s still ours, he’s still special, and we still love and cherish our time with him 🙂

Will we last the whole 21 days? I can’t be too sure. I know I’m going to want to share the news of our new little one badly! I do plan to make our announcement via Blog Post, which will be posted to Facebook without me having to sign on, so stay tuned! Can I resist the temptation of seeing what the world of Facebook thinks of my new little one?! Hard to say, so we shall see! However long we last this fast, I know it will be good for us and I’ll be proud of our attempt!

So here goes it…Peace out Facebook! See you when I see you!