Help! Facebook doesn't depress me!

I am an unapologetic fan of Facebook. I like knowing what my local and far away friends are up to. I enjoy seeing my younger friends post photos of their little ones. I appreciate the pet photos,  the status updates, and the majority of the comical or heart-tugging memes. It's just plain fun. And, like anything just plain fun that gets into the hands of a person with an addictive personality, I indulge in it far too often and for too large bites of time. But until I'm missing work or skipping meals in order to indulge my habit, I am going to assume I haven't crossed into the danger zone of Facebook addiction. Yet.

Facebook is a delightful sounding board for the terminally smart-alecky. I derive a great deal of pleasure out of posting humorously cranky mini-paragraphs about the relentlessly bone-chilling weather, or mock news stories ("Local beagle engages in unauthorized litter box feast; owner recoils in shock and horror"). 

I try to avoid inflicting my opinion on religious or political debates, although I will interject if I feel my comment is on target but not snarky. I am a liberal Democrat and a Christian/Buddhist hybrid, but many people I love and respect lean right and are solidly Christian. I have no desire to hurt anyone's feelings or insist that anyone see things my way (although who are we kidding, I'd love it if I could persuade them to).

I try not to post too much mushy love stuff about my significant other, in part because I do have some understanding of decorum, but also because I don't want to embarrass him. I don't want to embarrass myself, either. Love makes me gushy. And too much shared gush comes across as bragging. I don't want to brag. I have nothing to brag about. The fact that this intelligent, kind, funny, thoughtful, compassionate man came into my life is a cosmic gift, not any achievement of mine. And he is the most... Wait. I feel impending gush. Ahem. Let's move on.

I do not post where I am every time I sit down to lunch or walk in the park, as a lot of people do. If this sounds a tad snobby, let me tell you that one reason I don't is because all of my Facebook activity takes place under my own roof. I don't have a phone smart enough to deliver updates on my every move. And that's a good thing, as I doubt there's a person on this planet who gives a rat's hind end that I am picking up paper towels at ShopKo or scarfing down a fish plate at Big Boy.

According to someone's research - I have no idea whose - Facebook has become associated with incidents of depression in its regular users. Supposedly, reading about other people's family joys, business successes and exotic vacations can lead to envy, low self-esteem and bitterness on the part of the less fortunate Facebookites.

I recently read a story on Huffington Post about a woman who detached herself from social media and realized she is much happier for it. She no longer goes online via her cell phone when she can't sleep, scrolling through the posts of friends who are partying gleefully while she lies alone, pitifully alone, in her big lonely bed. She is getting over the compulsive urge to document her every move, and she is finding other ways to fill those chunks of time previously dominated by posting, tweeting, and Snapchatting. She reads books! She talks to people on the phone, or even face to face! She showers more than twice a month! All right, I made that last one up. The point is, she feels liberated. Not so liberated that she's abandoning her online life forever, but when she rejoins cyberland she'll be armed with a dose of perspective she didn't previously possess.

So I guess I've been doing Facebook all wrong. I don't feel depressed. I am not nauseated with envy. I don't wish I could have Mindy's or Bob's or Susan's or, well, anyone else's life besides my own. When I see photos of friends and relatives lounging on the beach in Hawaii or in their box seats at a Detroit Tigers game I don't think, "Dammit! That should be ME!" I simply note their enjoyment. Clearly, I am not reaping the full benefits of online life exposure. I am sadly lacking in sadness, anger, bitterness and resentment.

The credit for this goes, at least in part, to my recovery program. I have been told not to compare my insides with other people's outsides. Income, new cars, or multiple stamps on a passport do not equal peace of mind or satisfaction. Yes, I would love a new car, a trip to Jamaica, and a triple digit income. But the fact that I have none of those things doesn't eat at me. I am, for the most part, content. I am also sometimes cranky, ungrateful, and just plain miserable. Welcome to human-ness. 

Using Facebook as a barometer for one's personal happiness is a sketchy enterprise. Kind of like comparing your life with that of some happy sitcom family. I want to measure my happiness on my own scale. Bills paid? Check. Employed? Check. Sobriety, family, pets all in place? Check.

Now if you'll excuse me, I just thought of a hilarious status update I want to post. 

Happy birthday to everyone

Birthdays: I'm a fan.

Everyone deserves a day honoring their arrival on the planet. A little congratulations, a little hoopla, a day to make the birthday person aware that their presence is a gift to someone, or many someones. We spare no expense when it comes to funerals, to the mourning of a life's end. Why not expend some energy on celebrating the fact that we've given mortality the slip for another year?

Mortality. There's a heavy word. It's the key in the ignition of midlife crises. It's a word that becomes an actual felt presence as our age creeps higher. When you're young it's "Everyone dies eventually." When you reach middle age it's "I am going to die someday." Me. Solid, living, breathing, laughing, going-to-work, parenting, dog walking me, will someday cease to exist.

But not today! Well, so far so good, as of this moment.

And that is the gift we are given as we accumulate more birthdays. I understand as I never did before that each moment of life is a gift, an ephemeral gift, retractable at any moment. Sometimes it terrifies me; in my more self-indulgent moments, I wallow in that terror. But there are moments - and this is one of those moments - when I am acutely aware of being alive, and I am precisely appreciative of the moment in which I'm present. Sitting at my computer on a near silent Sunday morning, hair cool and damp from the shower. My dog is sleeping on the bed next to my desk, his breath an intermittent whisper; the man I love sleeps peacefully in the bed upstairs, the rest of our combined menagerie nestled around him. At this particular moment all is well. At this moment I want nothing more than this moment. If this is the wisdom of age, bring on the birthdays. A crop of gray hair, a scattering of varicose veins and wrinkles, and the need for an earlier bedtime is a small price to pay.

There are other, earthier perks to this middle age business. I dress for no one's approving eye but my own. I say what's on my mind more often than I keep silent to avoid conflict. I am learning to be less harsh with myself, trying to see my mistakes as human errors rather than unforgivable sins. I'm learning to say no to what I don't want and yes to things I may have not dared try before, when I was younger and less me.

Here's something else. You know when people say, "If you want to know how important you are in this world, put your hand in a bucket of water and pull it out. The space you leave shows how important you are." Bullshit. Each of us fits into this world somewhere, and each of us leaves an empty space when we depart. We count with someone, whether it's a spouse, sibling, parent, or the Starbucks clerk who recognizes us because we're at the drive-through every work morning.

Birthdays celebrate life. Life matters. We matter. Definitely calls for at least a cake and some candles, wouldn't you agree?