Facebook Fast, Day 8

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody posts it on Facebook, did it really happen?

I’m one week into my Facebook fast. I expected it to be harder. I expected to find out that I was itching to sneak a peek or lean in to eavesdrop in the dead of night when no one would catch me at it. I thought surely I would feel lost and a little lonely, although I rarely felt lost or lonely pre-Facebook. Still, I’d grown accustomed to just hearing what my friends were doing and what they felt passionate about and what made them laugh and what they looked like when they were 23.

But I haven’t felt lost and I haven’t felt lonely.

I’ve enjoyed the silence and the solitude of my evenings. I’ve enjoyed moving in the direction of just being quiet.

In the movie “Shall We Dance,” the Susan Sarandon character sat in a bar one night facing the fear that her husband, played by Richard Gere, was having an affair. She found herself in a conversation about why people marry and stay married. She said, “It’s because we want a witness to our lives.”

Divorced at the time I saw the movie, that resonated with me. We all need to know that someone cares what we say, what we do, think and feel. We all need a witness. Having lived alone for almost eight years now, I recognize that is what Facebook has become: my witness. The friends on Facebook who respond to my status updates, who “like” the things I say, who laugh with me and commiserate with me, are my witnesses. They are all the voice of God whispering, “We see you. We care. You matter.”

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