Quiet

If we are friends on Facebook, you might have noticed that I haven't been on much lately (or maybe you didn't notice, which is totally okay). This has been mostly on purpose.

I realized recently that I was falling back into a pretty ugly depression and an even uglier cycle of anxiety. One reason, of many, was Facebook. The drama, the arguing, the meanness, and especially the people who take it way, way too seriously.

For my own sanity, I had to peace out. Not forever and not completely (my LuLaRoe group is very important to me), but being mostly off of Facebook has been a very pleasant thing overall.


Except being off of Facebook didn't really solve the problem.

I was talking to my husband earlier about that designer who had weight-loss surgery and how she went to the doctor because she was having some health problems and ended up hospitalized for some other health problems and how she made the decision to have this surgery and people were being really, really mean to her about it. Seriously, these same people who are shouting angrily, "MY BODY IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS" are somehow making this poor young woman's body THEIR business and saying all this really mean, rank horrible crap about her. It's very upsetting to read.

I told Jason all of this in great detail and likely in a very animated fashion. He listened to all of it and then he said, very kindly,

"Babe, this has nothing to do with you."

Well I KNOW that, and of course that's what I said. I know it has nothing to do with me, but I just feel so BAD for this young lady and it's...

None of my business.

I didn't say anything else because, well, what is there really to say? My husband, (again very kindly) said to me,

"Do you think that maybe you get yourself so spun up about things that have nothing to do with you so you don't have to deal with the things that are really bothering you?"


Um.


Yes.



Yes. Yes. Yes.


It's easier, you know? It's so much easier to feel sorry for this woman than to worry about my changing relationship with my son, or the fact that I feel stuck in my career. It's much less taxing on my soul to say something like, "I wish those women weren't so mean to her!" than it is to accept that some people in my life are really, really mean to me and I've just dealt with it for years. It's so much less painful to think about her losing weight than it is to think about my husband losing his memory. This woman, who I will never meet and who has way more money and probably more love in her life than I do, was an easy substitute for this huge, gaping hole that I've been trying to fill up with working and running and trying so hard to fix people and things around me. It's not just her either, I've been very sad/angry/upset/hurt by many, many things online and in the news lately and it's just exhausting. Spiritually, emotionally, and sometimes physically exhausting.


I don't want to ever become a person who doesn't care about the plight of other people. Let me rephrase that a bit...I WILL never become a person who doesn't care about the plight of other people. Still, I have to agree that children who need mentors (and milk and hugs) and veterans who are living under bridges are a bit more needy than a lady who is getting mean comments on the internet. Of course I don't want people to be mean to others, it's part of the reason that so many people brand me a "special snowflake". Meanness is never okay, but I do think that part of being in the public eye, like so many of these people are, helps you develop a thicker skin. This lady has publicly said she's happy about her decision, and that's all that matters.




So where do I go from here? I don't know. I honestly don't.

I just know I have a lot to work on.