Sound Bites

I've realized recently that I'm really tired.  

I know, I know, new mom.  Newly adopted son.   Of course I'm tired!!  Right?  

Wrong.

I'm tired of living in "sound bites".   I'm tired of life being reduced to a series of captions on photographs or short little status updates.   I'm tired of never seeing the person behind the posts.  I'm trying hard to choose joy in the online Circus, but it seems to be getting harder and harder to do.   

I'm tired of having hundreds of friends....who never get to see the real me, because it's just impossible to share your thoughts and feelings and experiences on a truly personal level in a status update.   Even if the comments under that status update number into the hundreds, you still only get a glimpse, or a picture, of that friend's thoughts and experiences.

I'm tired of meeting someone or running into someone that I haven't seen in awhile and feeling confused.   Confused at the things they know that I either forgot that I shared, or things that they saw through a mutual friend, or things that somehow were shared that I didn't know were now public knowledge.   Confused at the person they think I am and the life they think I lead.  I'm tired of feeling like I have to either live up to that ideal (Boys!   Don't say "fart" in public!!) or correct it by emphasizing the bad days/things.  

And emphasizing the bad isn't really my thing, y'all.   I've written about this before, this conscious choice that we've made to focus on the good, to choose joy, in our daily lives.   When I'm 80,  I don't want to remember the teething baby who won't go to sleep and scratches at my face.  I want to remember the smiles.  The coos.   The spilled meals, the dinners they turn their nose up at, the tantrums.   Those things I want to forget.   And the moments I want to freeze in time to thumb through when my kids are grown and living lives of their own?   The happy faces with completed Lego projects.  The cuddles in front of the fire.   The art projects that led to messy, paint covered noses and pictures hung on a wall.    

We joined Facebook years ago, with the intention being able to keep in touch with friends and family from far away.   Over time, as we walked further and further on our "reversion" faith journey, we realized that there seemed to be this absence of hope and joy online.   Everyone was always shouting, always angry.   There was a real hunger, it seemed, to see joy.  To see the good and beautiful that could come from family life.   We do not, by any means, have that "perfect family", but we realized that while things aren't perfect by human standards, they're always perfect because they come from God.   Our job, as humans, is to look for Him in the mess.   To keep turning back to Him in the chaos.   Facebook became an easy way to try to look for Him.  To try to look for the Good.  The True.  The Beautiful.   

So that's what we set out to do.  To find the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in our daily lives and share it on Facebook.  The hope was to maybe inspire others to look for the blessings in their lives, maybe even to invite them into our experiences and share our testimony with them.    And, of course, to stay in contact with and on top of the lives of our friends and family.  The good AND the bad times.   

And for the most part, that's what Facebook was.   At least, that's what we were using it as, and I do think we had been relatively successful at meeting our goal of sharing the good and the beauty.

The good and the beauty.   But not the Good and the Beautiful.

Somehow, over the course of our attempt, we've gotten it wrong.    I think in our attempt to witness to God's presence and grace in our lives, it's turned into a witness of how good and beautiful WE are.   It's not been a conscious thing - the intention has always been to glorify God with our lives - but I'm afraid that is what may not be happening.   The message doesn't seem to be getting across.    I'm not sure why, but somehow our intentions aren't conveying into the results we're hoping for.

But I do know this:   We at the Circus need to refocus on that joy, that gift from God.   We need to stop living in sound bites and start actively building (and maintaining) personal relationships.  

So, for now, our personal FB accounts are disappearing.   Mine already has, and we're working on clearing Mike's out.    I'm tired of living a life in snapshots, building relationships founded in perfectly posed pictures and two line status updates.    I'll keep updating the blog with musings and updates on the kids and our family life, but the main goal is to actually reach out and build relationships based on conversations and shared experiences.   It's going to be hard for this introvert to break out of her safe and cozy computer screen, so I ask for your help and understanding.  There will probably be days where I just need to shut off the phone ringer and lock us in the house and stay home, even if we'd planned on going out.    Please don't hold it against me!   

But I'm tired of living in sound bites.  I'm tired of feeling like a failure when I look at other perfectly posed pictures.   I'm tired of feeling like I have to live up to my own perfectly posed pictures when I see someone in real life.    I'm tired of adult conversation consisting of a comment section discussion between you, me, and 600 of our closest friends.    

I'm tired of living a virtual life.

It's time to step into real life.  Messes and all.