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I recently experienced a short stay on Face Book.
I left because I was a voyeur to other people’s activities.
Belinda * was constantly signing up for one consciouness-raising group after another. Mary Ann collected friends like trophies everywhere she went. Dorcas posted pictures of how good she was at the ‘woo woo’ stuff. Juanita had over a hundred ‘friends’.
Donald and Samantha were already lovers. I was his former S/O. He joined first after I’d invited him. He ‘found’ her on the ‘E-mail Friend Finder’. How strange! How could you ‘find’ someone who wasn’t lost in the first place? They live together! Donald, Sam and I became ‘friends’ and then she started writing love notes to Donald, with me right there to see! Thanks, ‘friend’. Isn’t this something you need to be doing in private via e-mail or (God forbid, save me from technology) text?
Another friend, whom I blocked at the start, invited his other friends to come ‘do’ something to a lollipop reference to a certain part of his anatomy. Why do I need to be privy to this? Why does anyone?
I’d log on and watch, that’s all I’d do. So-and-so signed up for this group, somebody joined something else. People would send each other messages and I’d sit there and watch.
Is THIS what society is coming to?
Why do we spend so much time signing up for activities in cyberspace?
Where is the real connection? What has happened to phoning or writing? I guess that, too, will fall by the wayside as we advance into this digital age.
Oh, excuse me…. we do have text messaging, something that I’ve yet to embrace. Why do we need to be ‘connected’ to everyone we know all the time? In this day of instant gratification we’ve all become addicted to knowing everything RIGHT NOW. Impatience has increased with the level of technology. It’s no longer acceptable to wait; we have to know. We can’t even wait 9 months to have God’s greatest surprise reveal him or herself at birth.
I admit I’ve become a slave to my inbox…., but Face book is something I can live without.
*names changed to protect the guilty
Blustery was the day; winter and spring having a tug of war over the land.
As I was leaving a shopping center I stopped at the apron to look for traffic. Directly in front of me was a cemetery; a blue funeral parlor canopy ruffled in the wind.
A lone elderly man stood underneath the tent. At his feet was a fallen floral grave decoration, blooms face down on the dirt. He stood there by himself. There were no others walking away as if the service had just ended, no cars but his silver Buick a few rows away.
Who was he? Was this his wife, his sister, a child, a brother or a cherished friend? Had one of his parents, who must’ve been very ancient, just passed to the other realm?
Intrigued, but at the same time I didn’t want to stare. I didn’t want him to see me looking; an intrusion it would have been upon his grief, so I looked away.
This day, so normal for all passing around him, would be remembered by him in sadness for the rest of his life.
This memory for me, too, is etched in my mind…. billowing blue canopy and the single man underneath, alone with death, yet surrounded by life.
