Do you Facebook?

I have a love/hate relationship with my Facebook. How 'bout you? While I was initially introduced to it by a contemporary I thought it was merely for college kids and I was not about to entangle myself in their world trying to reclaim my youth. So I resisted. Then my teenager signed on. Hum, should I be "checking in" on him? Then more and more invitations were coming through my email account. I was spending so much time ignoring friends...wasn't this rude of me...that I thought, maybe this would be a useful networking tool for my business. I'm seeing more and more websites with those cute little blue and white "f" icons all over the place. Maybe I should give it a try? I was surprised how simple it was to create my Facebook page. Once the pertinent information was plugged in faces and names were popping up from all over! My life came flooding back in a rush of nostalgia. Friendships permeated my wall from as far back as third grade when I lived in Raleigh, five states away! How can this be? But this is supposed to be about my work, right? I found myself accepting friendships, writing notes and catching up with people I'd lost touch with and had been searching for for years. An old sorority sister, a dear friend from the ballet company. It's amazing! I'm sure most of you reading this now went through the same nostalgic journey as I when you started Facebooking. My problem is I can't stay away; thus the addictive nickname that arose referring to Facebook as "crackbook"! I want to talk to everyone! But how much do I say? How often do I post an update? Do I talk wall-to-wall or inbox? Should I say this or that or will someone read it and think I'm responding to their plight? Will I injure egos? Will I be entertaining? Should I care? My Mom Facebooks; I love it! It's comforting to know where she is and how she's doing when she's on her usual road trip. One of the drawbacks on the walls of Facebook is that people do feel free to comment openingly thinking nobody is looking. Au contraire, everyone is looking and then some, due to the "and so on, and so on, and so on", feature it enables to occur. As a plus, this feature usually enables a conversation to flow between many people who only know each other through a Six Degrees of Separation Group experiment or such. How interesting and fun to receive helpful tips on a perplexing issue when you can reach out in this manner. Facebook has connected me with friends I haven't seen in decades, people that were a big part of my life in some way years ago; old friends from childhood and cousins I missed having in my life when we moved North. Not to mention High School and College friends that slowly faded from my radar as much as we swore to each other we'd never let this happen. I think Facebook is brilliant. I am so grateful to have it in my life and I am going to continue to visit often. I don't care if people think I'm too chatty as my face pops up again and again attached to my little quips. I want my friends to know that I think of them often, value their friendship and always have. Friends are the spice of life! And now that life has gotten to a frantic pace, I'm so glad that I can share a piece of it with them, even if it is only in cyberspace here and there! If you haven't joined, I suggest you give it a try, but be prepared for your own personal blast from the past! Thanks for reading! Miriam