Wednesday 4 March 2009

One week and I haven't died yet

We are one week into Lent 2009.

For those of you who know absolutely NOTHING about Lent, it is a time when Christians are called to reflect on their lives and sacrifice/fast in the way Jesus did for 40 days in the desert, where he was tempted by Satan.  Lent is over at Easter.  Although if you add up the total number of days from Ash Wednesday to the beginning of the Triduum (the 3 days encompassing Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday), you don't get 40. You get 45.  Many people say that this allows you to cheat on Sundays (of which there are 5 in lent).  In fact, every Sunday is a mini-Easter, and a celebration of the resurrection, even during Lent.  So if you cheat on Sundays and indulge in your chocolate mini eggs (which I gave up one year and thoroughly regretted), you won't go to hell.

This year, however, I am not cheating at all.  No Sunday sneaking.

I gave up Facebook for Lent.

The moment I realized that I was a crackbook addict was when a good friend of mine changed his relationship status, thus making me think that he had split up with his girlfriend of 2 years and that he never told me about it. How could he do that??  I had just talked to him and he never mentioned anything!  This is insane!  So I sent him a quick note asking what was going on.  He told me that they are still together.  They just decided that people take FB way too seriously and that they would remove that sort of personal information from their pages.  I am obviously one of these people, as I actually thought that he would announce his breakup to the world on FB and neglect to tell me in person about such a serious change in his life.

I thought that deactivating my account would be difficult, but it has proved to be a relief.  No more inbox full of notifications, no more obsessively checking for photos or updates from my friends.  I have been back into regular old knitting and reading, and talking to people on the good old telephone, which suits me just fine. I am now contemplating whether or not I will even reactivate my account when Lent is over.

So for now, you won't find me on FB.  I won't be posting photos of the kids or of the fantastic time I had at my step-brother's wedding (first time we left the kids EVER).  I'll be enjoying my life in the real world.  And here in real life to talk to you about it.

1 comment:

  1. I'm possibly addicted to facebook as well... I sometimes hear myself saying "Well, according to Facebook..." and I'm like...uh... that's so not ok. I've been contemplating taking a hiatus from it for awhile. I think facebook totally feeds my inner creeper.

    ReplyDelete

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