If I’ve learned anything over the past three months, it’s that
Facebook is a minefield for me. I’ll
just be scrolling along just checking out what’s going on in the lives of
friends or acquaintances, and then the next thing I know I’m a sobbing ball of emotions
before I even understand what just happened.
For instance, last night I was checking Facebook before I
went to sleep, like I do almost every night.
I was completely fine until I saw that one of my friends little girl had
a birthday, which then made me realize it was the 8th…which made me
realize it had now been exactly three months since I lost Isaac…which led me to
count the weeks that he’s been gone….13.
That is the moment when I completely broke down and became a
ball of uncontrollable emotions, and it wasn’t pretty. I finally realized I wasn’t recovering from
this sudden outburst so I asked Tom to come lay with me, and hold me. While lying there I told him quite frankly,
and probably louder than necessary “This isn’t fair!” I was acting just like a toddler throwing a
tantrum when they don’t get their way, and I couldn’t help it or stop it. I had gone from sad to angry, angry to feeling
empty, feeling empty to helpless, helpless to sad, and eventually from sadness
to acceptance. Tom has a way of helping
me see things from a different perspective, and calming me down like no one
else, and I am so thankful for that.
While drifting to sleep, after I had gained some composure,
I started wondering if Facebook was a minefield for other people as well. What about the single person that constantly
sees pictures of happy couples? Or,
people like me, who now see pictures of newborns and pregnancy announcements
and makes me long for my baby? Or what about
the person who just lost someone or an animal close to them, and then sees
pictures of others being happy with their people and animals? What about the people that always seem to
have their lives together, are always happy, and seem to have the perfect
lives? Do any of these instantly turn you
into a jealous, angry ball of emotions as well?
Oh, just me?
Before losing Isaac I never considered how other people
viewed my life based on random posts and square pictures online. If I looked at my profile, I would think I
have my life put together and have the perfect child, and was always happy, but
is that really how my life is?
Absolutely not. It seems I’ve
fallen into the trap of only showing what I want others to see…which isn’t how
life is. Not even close. If I’m being honest, like most of us, we only
post the good, and I refuse to do that anymore, because our lives are filled
with the good, the bad, and the ugly. The
last thing I want is for other people to think I have this life thing all figured
out and am in control of my emotions and feelings all the time. That’s definitely not true. Case in point - see above when I acted like a
toddler throwing a fit.
Going forward, I’m going to challenge myself to post on
Facebook with whatever I’m feeling, whether I’m angry, sad, depressed, happy,
excited, and every emotion in between…and be my true self. If you’re on my friends list I trust you
enough to be vulnerable with who I really am.
And I will continue to look at your lives through posts and do my best
not to be jealous of you because I’m sure your life is just as flawed as
mine…even if we don’t always show it.
1 comment:
I understand how you feel. All I've ever wanted, since I was a child, was to get married one day and have a husband that loved me, children that loved me, and grandchildren that loved me. What I came to have was getting married the first time to a man that I dearly loved, but left me after 9 years of marriage, a child with severe autism that can't really love or feel love, a child that has so much anger and confusion in her life that she can't seem to bring herself to love me, and another child with Asperger's autism that also has trouble loving. I will probably never have grandchildren because my youngest daughter has endometriosis so badly that, when she was pregnant with twins, she miscarried one early in her pregnancy, and the other one was born after 5 and 1/2 months, and had a chance of living, but came out with the cord wrapped around his neck. Life is rough. We just have to hold onto God and keep on keepin' on. I am bothered when I see a "Grandmother" post, or when people say how much they love their grandchildren... etc. I'm very happy for them, but, on the other hand, I'm very jealous. I am bothered when I see a child loving her Mother, because, basically, I don't have that. I know exactly how you feel, April, but life goes on, and someday Jesus will come and take us to Heaven, where nothing bad will ever happen again, and we will be happy forever. God bless you. <3
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