Three Weeks Down...

This week...I am more than acutely aware of how few people's lives I am a part of.

It's not that this is a surprise.  I've always known my tribe was small.  God has been growing that tribe this past season, but it's still pretty small.  Especially compared to the social butterflies of the world.

Here's the part I realized:  I know very few people, yes, but I belong to very people.

If that makes sense.  

Social media allows us to write our own narrative about ourselves and our lives.  We pick the words, the photos, the links we share.  And with every share, our "friends" learn more about that narrative we craft.  

As a reader of those narratives, I tend to latch on.  It's like reading a good book and feeling as if the characters are your friends.  If you've ever stopped ten pages short of the end of a book just because you didn't want it to end, you know what I mean.  Or spent hours searching for more information about characters, interviews with the author, wondering if there was a sequel, you know what I mean. Or if you've ever wanted to throw your popcorn at a movie screen because the movie is not as good as the book, you know what I mean. 

The forum for publishing your narrative might be exceedingly common with millions of users but it doesn't change the reality.  You are telling your life story one post and one picture at a time.  And those "followers" have a false sense of familiarity because of that.

Social media can be a really good fiction novel.

Smiling babies, pinterest fails meant to "keep it real," frustrations venting, political views expressed, jokes made and sarcasm traded like currency.  Elements of a good read but not truth.  At best, only the partial truth.

The narrative, like a good work of fiction, draws you in.  You laugh with the characters.  You cry with them.  You celebrate with them.  You shake your head in agreement.  You might even pray with them when asked.  

But you don't KNOW them.  You only know the narrative they are writing.

And I love narratives.  

Y'all, I am just a sucker for a good story.  More specifically, I adore a good memoir.  I'm been reading like a crazy this season and I've read ONE fiction novel.  That was during the Chicago trip when I just needed some mindless fluff.  It was entertaining but it doesn't impact me like reading someone telling me the truth of their life in a memoir.  

Whether that truth is all true or if it's just putting lipstick on a pig, so to speak, doesn't really matter to me.  Those words are the truth they want me to know and I am, again, a sucker for a good story.

So here I sit, reading good stories.  Getting to know characters.  Letting them become part of my thoughts and prayers.  But only knowing the truth, the narrative, they want to share.  

The past three weeks, I've put down the books the people on my friends list are slowly writing.  I've read not a single story about them or their kids or their jobs or the feelings on the Super Bowl.  

(Go Cam!)

(But, man, Peyton.  Nothing but respect.)

The characters have left and, like any good novel, they have not even noticed I'm feeling their departure.  It's like they don't even know I'm gone.

Because they don't.

Why would they?  They are characters.  Even if they were people I had real relationships with last year or twenty years ago, now, they are characters in a novel.  

Honestly, I think this week I realized I am holding a book I've finished reading and I kinda miss the characters.  Wish I could have a conversation with them.  Wondering how things have been going.  But that feeling is totally one sided.  They are not wishing for a conversation with me or wondering how things are going.  

If you're thinking this sounds horribly pathetic and sad, that's because it is.  

But it's a good lesson/realization for me.  The truly sad part is that it took this long for me to realize this about my self.  

This week, more than the past two, has me really considering staying out of it all.  I'm not much of a "all things in moderation" person.  If you've ever seen me eat a bag of those fun size Snickers, you know that about me.  I eat one and then the entire bag disappears.  It's a gift really.  Few people can inhale Snickers like I can.  I know, you're jealous.  

So you see what I mean.

I may not be able to just check in sometimes.  Or on Saturdays.  Or only when I'm on the computer.  

We'll see.  I'm committing to absolutely nothing today.

Other than to say, now that I realize how much I latch on to the characters' narratives, I will be more careful to stay detached.  Kinda like when I watch an action movie and I close my eyes during the especially violent part and repeat the words, "It's not real, it's not real, it's not real" over and over to myself.  

Same thing applies to social media.  It's not real.  It's not real.  It's not real.