What Social Media Did For Me

These past five years have flown by. And I can't remember most of it. The highlights stick out to me...the birth of my three kids, first birthday's, an assortment of random memories. But for the most part, I don't even remember two year old Jacob. Or one year old Kaylen. Or two month old Marlee. It makes me sad that I can barely conjure up those sweet moments, funny moments, long moments. But it really is a struggle. 

I've often thought of closing my Facebook account. Partly because I look at it too much, even though I try to limit myself to only when my kids aren't around and partly because no one really wants that much information about me. I'm sure half of my lengthy list of "friends" has me hidden from their news feeds. The only thing that stops me from deleting it entirely is the extended family who actually do enjoy the photos or funny things I put on there about my kids and who aren't here to enjoy them in person. And one more thing, Facebook has become for me, a treasure trove of my memories. 

For the last two evenings, I spent hours putting together a digital photo album of snapshots of the past five years. I had a significant number of mobile uploads in my Facebook photos that linked together the days I couldn't remember with the highlights I could. The image quality is poor in a lot of the pictures, but they are some of the most precious moments of my entire life. And I'm so glad I have them. 

The book got rather lengthy, fifty pages long (!!!) but every page is filled with pictures of my littles and the things I want to remember about them, about me, about us. I even went so far as to put the caption I used online with the photo in my album, those words being the original poignant {or silly or ironic or sarcastic} thought that went with that particular moment. 

Facebook is one of those love/hate relationships for me, but at the moment, it's mostly love. Because it's given me back something I couldn't quite put my finger on, memories of the everyday life I am blessed to live.