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I deactivated my Facebook account yesterday. What a freeing (near-year) venture! I’ve been pondering getting rid of Facebook for almost a year but I have always delayed because I, so desperately, want to shine a light for people. I’ve always felt that human and tangible light has been so absent in my own life. I’ve wanted to share the real (good AND bad) stuff about life. To just show people that through the pain, there is God’s goodness and God’s light shining and His beauty displayed somewhere.

This was a chat interaction, with my husband (who had/has great insight), about it all:

why deactivating? I kind of have an idea, but what made you definitive about it?

that email from [girl] yesterday

i’m tired of creating friends and families of love and acceptance when i’m just a wisp of air to people. i waste my time trying to make a presence of love and friendship and i’m not noticed when i’m gone

i’m going to try and focus on life here. real life. and real life relationships and friendships. with phone calls and email, instead of pretending by still finding out about my “friends’” lives without direct contact

ah yeah… that sounds like a really good thing: to stop surviving on the placebo of text on a screen as friendship/connection and seek real life.

sounds like a good blog entry.

You’re really good with people. People are just not that great with responding to someone who really values them for the mere fact that they are alive. it’ like a disconnect as your life-giving thing is people, and most people are not like that. They’re too selfish, or busy or overwhelmed to properly reciprocate. Or they don’t know how. The only flaw I see in all this (on your side) is your trying to find your value or worth in the way people respond to your valuing of them.

I don’t know if I’ll ever reactivate it or if I’ll delete it for good. For now, it’s a tremendous healthy decision. I put so much time and energy into loving people and cultivating relationships on Facebook, that stayed completely static. Because, I’m finally relinquishing that relationships don’t grow, souly solely, through the internet. During the times that I spent real, face to face, moments with these people, we didn’t have much to say. Facebook status updates were followed up on (or forgotten about) and questions about each other’s lives (besides what we allowed through, onto FB) was scarce. I’m seeing now that it was because we *Facebook Friends* already knew “everything” about each other. Any info there was to know, would be on status updates and pictures, right??

I would see people at church and feel no need to ask them about their lives because I felt I already knew. I had one friend that once told me I was her closest friend (and I felt the same way about her), only to have her completely stop communicating with me (and, seemingly, only me) on Facebook. Every time she responded to something going on in my life (or what I allowed through, to FB), it was a response to my status update or pictures, via texting. It was like Facebook became our interpreter for communicating with each other and a replacement to finding out about each other’s lives. Instead of actually communicating, in words, old school style… Conversations and questions at the park revolved around things posted on Facebook. Distance with family began as well. The few times we’d speak we’d make reference to knowing something about each others’ lives after seeing it posted on Facebook.

I read a blog entry from someone at my church, while they were visiting a city in Mexico. A group from our church went to Mexico to help and find out how we could help their village in the future and a question was asked amongst the group, “Would [our church] be missed if we were to withdraw?” I’ve been thinking about that quote, nearly non-stop, since I read it a few months ago. If I was to withdraw from Facebook, or any other relationship, would I be missed? Would I miss the lives that were so-called “investing” in me on there? Was I even investing? Were they investing in me or was I pouring my life into a never-ending vat? I had a realization yesterday (after I received an email that confirmed that even after 3 years of perceived relationship-building there could be absolutely nothing there) and that realization was that, through Facebook, there’s been no real investing. Into me AND from me. In the times that people have poured into my life, the deepest and most impacting, were filled with intent and purpose and real-life interaction.

I wrote off hours, every day, while on Facebook. I attributed it to my complete and utter love for people and knowing about what was going on in their lives and thinking about how I could help them. In any way. I wrote off my addiction as being evidence of a love for people and life. Instead, Facebook became my replacement to life itself. It became my god and I’m sad, but relieved, to see it go.

*Here’s* to the new real and revamping old school communication.

In July, we finally settled our car accident claim. I never felt completely comfortable with getting an attorney. I met with one and there were too many red flags. Especially in the fact of how much money she would end up getting, in the end. I don’t like gambling and it felt like it would be such a gamble to invest in an attorney and not end up with much more than the initial settlement offer. So, I got the insurance company to raise their offer enough to feel like I wasn’t getting ripped off and to a place where I felt compensated for everything I’ve gone through. I still second guess settling though but my psyche was worn down so low, I don’t think I (or my family) could have handled any more. What a ride…

I immediately paid off $12k in medical bills, which ended up turning into weeks of phone calls and playing phone tag and running payment errands and trying and re-trying to pay bills over the phone. All of this, while the kids were STILL home from summer break. *sidenote* I have some advice. If you’re going to get in an accident, plan for it to happen while the kids are still in school. Then, you’ll have the time and energy to recover and deal with the hell of it all. That advice will save some of your sanity.*end sidenote*

Then, I began the humongo job of planning a long-overdue and much-needed family vacation. When the process to settle this insurance claim first started, in March, Jase and I began talking about where that money would go. We knew we had debt to pay off, along with all of the debt accumulated from the accident. However, we also knew that our summer sucked. It was horribly stressful on our marriage, our children, our bodies, and our schedule. So… we needed a break. I’ll be adding another post, specifically about that trip.

Once the insurance check came in, the healing process officially began. My brain is becoming organized again and my back has slowly decreased in tension. I still have physical issues, but the strain of feeling like I was being sucked into a black hole, is dissipating so I know that I’ll continue down the path to recovery. Through all of this, I’ve quickly learned that my stress is carried in my back. I’ve finally started a routine of exercise as well, and as soon as my core is strengthened, I’m sure that my back pain will drastically decrease.

Through this experience, I’ve also learned how to appreciate my husband and children more. I’m trying to be more diligent in spending quality time with them. In the past couple of weeks, Jase and I have been up between 5am and 6am and, separately, ran or walked in the open space near our home. I’ve had Malakai and Zoe come with me a couple of times and it’s the most amazing bonding experience and start to a day. I love that I’m able to do things that help heal me AND grow me closer to my kids, especially after they’ve been so neglected lately.

Confidence is a tricky thing. If you have too much, you’re arrogant and annoying and if you don’t have enough, you’re self-deprecating and annoying. The line in-between is thin and tough to find but I think I’m beginning to recognize it. I’ve wanted to swing as far away from arrogance, as possible, but it has left me constantly beating myself up and never being “good enough.” My *lip service* has always been that I’m good, just as I am, and people should be happy with that. I should be happy with that. But my counter-actions and feelings were a LOT stronger than those words. In everything I do; as a mom, a wife, a friend, a mentor, a daughter, a sister, and a singer, it’s never been good enough for me. Conversations could have improved, time spent with a teenager or my children or my husband could have been increased, singing a certain part could have been different and better, my house could look nicer. I was never happy with my end results. The more self-deprecating I was, the more withdrawn I became and the more off-key (vocally/emotionally/spiritually) I was. In everything I did and with everything I was, I was discontent and it’s a very depressing state of mind.

In the last several weeks, though, I’ve realized that this state of mind existed because I was placing my worth on my own unrealistic expectations. By doing that, I wasn’t allowing God to just *be* in/with/through me.

It’s a tough path to stay on but I’ve got a bounce back in my step and my shoulders are settling back a little more firmly and my head is lifting a lot higher. I’m feeling a new and strange sense of confidence that I’ve never had before and it’s exhilarating. I’m learning to tell the difference between confidence and arrogance and it’s such a freeing place to be. I’m learning how to give everything my all and then give it over to God and not dwell on it. No matter the outcome.

I’m not naive but I have a feeling that the episodes of beating myself up will slowly disappear, because I’ve already seen and felt a difference in the last few weeks.

So, there it is, I’m a change in progress and I’m gonna try and stop being so pathetic.

Jase and I, and the kids, were rear-ended on Sunday. Besides the pain I’m now in, the thing that sucks the most is the fact that we were in the process of communicating with a broker to trade in our van and jeep for one vehicle with a lower monthly payment. After looking at a car lot on Saturday, selecting a couple of vehicles that could work for our family and communicating with this broker, we were finally on the right path of getting our finances in order.

That is, until Mr. Chevy Impala decided to not see us stopped at a yield for a highway on-ramp and slammed into the back of us. My first thought was the trauma of this night as I desperately scanned the back seats to make sure my children were ok. Then I was concerned since the man was now in Jase’s face, while Jase was still in the driver’s seat, and the guy had his hands on Jase’s shoulders, apologizing profusely. I was afraid of what this stranger was capable of doing and that chemicals could possibly be in his system. After asking the guy, several times, to back off, the guy retreated and Jase went out to handle the info swap. I got on the phone and called 911. Paramedics, police cars and a fire truck showed up. From terror to confusion to excitement to fear again, the children experienced a range of emotions. When I started feeling the numbness/painless-burning in my neck, I got scared. Not only did we now have to handle the strain of insurance companies and claims and getting our van fixed. I knew that in a couple of days, I was going to be painfully messed up. Did I mention that we don’t have medical insurance? Yeah…

Very few things make me feel accomplished like I do when I cook or bake something fantastic. That feeling could be ingrained into my DNA or maybe it’s from having a grandma go all out with food and meals whenever we came to visit.

I made the most delicious, thrown-together meal tonight. Now, what I’m about to share may be influenced by the fact that I had gone about eight hours between meals. Maybe I was starving and anything would have been a magically delicious gift from the heavens. I just think it was damn brilliant so I’m sharing it here.

It’s been raining and overcast for two days so I knew I wanted soup for dinner. I didn’t want the soup straight from the can though, it sounded too boring. As soon as I eyed some avocados on the counter, my brain went crazy with an idea. I took out a can of Campbell’s Chunky Chicken Noodle soup and added some chunked avocados, cruched tortilla chips (La Favorita, literally, are my favorite) and some splashes of tabasco sauce. A twist to tortilla soup and it was so easy and actually tasted better than any other restaurant’s tortilla soup.

I don’t think I could have topped that off any better than with a big ol’ slice of my homemade banana bread. Delicious!