I broke up with FB over 3 years ago. You know FB. The F-word. The divorce left a hole in my life, I will not lie. I cried. I wondered if FB was seeing other people and what they were doing at every given moment. I pictured it with other women, having fun at parties while I sat home, alone, depressed and in the dark. Was it liking those other girls more? Were the hearts piling up on post after post? Any posts but mine? I pictured happy people doing what happy people do, without me. Walking on a beach, no tan lines and no cellulite, drinking only the best beer. (Not that beer.)
It did a real zinger on my self-perception. But, after the dumpage happened, I had time to do a hard-core internal/external analysis. This self-penetrating radar made me realize that I could not photo shop my way into a healthy lifestyle. I was in denial. Self denial is the worst kind. It is self harm.
Facebook made it so easy to tweak away the ugly. People on social media only show what they want others to see, as they think their story should look. Is there anything on FB that has not been organically altered to make the user look better than they actually are? Beautiful? Stronger? More virtuous? Civic-minded? Happier? And, if there is an unattractive video or image, chances are, the ugly was caught on camera before it had a chance to adulterate into the unreal. The deluded. The fiction.
When the cost/benefit analysis of the relationship between myself and social media came out, I was the loser. Big time. I was forced to re-evaluate the whole liaison and after many sleepless nights of “what ifs”, I severed that dirty affair with malice aforethought. I never looked back. As it turns out, without that big blue F on my back, I could do wondrous things. Marvelous things.
After the breakup came the realization that I could not out-exercise my fork. Consequently, in the ensuing 8 months, I set out to become the Phantom-Photo-Shop-Me. And I did. I became her and so much more. I lost 65 pounds. My skin and complexion improved by leaps and bounds. I quit sugar, flour, processed food and supplements. The supplements would give me the false sense that I was helping myself, while eating my way into an early grave. Yeah, no. There were no drugs taken or anything to be auto-filled. No shakes. No BS. Just real food and lots of water. It is the hardest thing I have ever done. It is the hardest thing I do every single day. I now think about every cotton-pickin’ thing that goes into my pie hole.
So…instead of self-medicating my ego with altered, photo-shopped pictures of my fat face on meta, I took to classmates.com to fill the void created by the vacuous, destructive, soul-sucking scroll beast, AKA the F.
Yes, I had to pay a little bit per month for classmates. But, on the plus side, I also get to snoop. I haven’t paid for it in months, yet it keeps letting me in. Thanks classmates!
It has been 40+ years since I graduated from high school. Just the words ‘high school’ make me cringe. I still have flash backs and some PTSD from those years. You seriously could not pay me enough to go back. It was terrible. Everywhere. Home sucked, school sucked, being a girl who didn’t know what a tampon was, sucked. It was all just badbadbad.
I was the girl who never fit. Anywhere. Awkward, unsure, hormonal, chubby, BOY CRAZY. I felt as if I were a stranger in my own skin. I would like to be able to go back and give that girl a hug. To tell her it is okay to find herself and figure out what she loves (besides cowboys). I would tell her that it is totally normal to NOT know how to be her. After all, she is one a kind and nobody has ever been her before. EVER.
I would tell her to eat what God put on this earth for her and stay away from the ‘food pyramid’ lie. I would tell her that others cannot and should never define who she is. She is unique and one of a kind. Do not let anyone bully her. She was created as enough. I would tell her to always put God first. Poor kid. Looks fade, but character last forever.
I would not tell her that she would be in her late 50’s before she would finally come into her own. No, that would just make her cry even more than she already did.
Would I tell her that looking up her old ‘classmates’ when she was fifty-something would give her a highly dubious sense of spiteful satisfaction? Probably not. But it did, and it does continue to be the gift that keeps on giving. God forgive me.
All those mean-girls. And the weak boys who did their bidding. Because, those girls ran those boys. Those mean-girls were super mean. Mean to ME.
Now, as I sit back with mouse in hand, one of the Mean Girls pops up on my classmates notifications. As I click through, it wants to know how I remember Lori? Oh, that Lori? Seems Old Lady Lori looks a little different now, what with all the wrinkles and age spots. The mean girl who thought she was oh-so-hot? Her? Right. That one. I see the words it will let me click on to describe her…but I don’t see the words I am looking for. Snotty? Stuck-up? Stupid? Girl dog? Bully? Yeah, those words aren’t there. Ain’t life grand??
Editors note 2024: Hubs said he was disappointed in the ending of this Substack article because I was mean and obviously didn’t learn anything through my FB experience…because I was still on Classmates and talking smack on here. Well, I am not on Classmates anymore. And he will never read this edit. So, I don’t care if he thinks I should be better than I am. Because I am not. Hurt is hurt and those girls were wretched to me.
My 50th high school reunion is coming up in a couple of years. I have NO intention of going. I have no desire to relive those years AT ALL. They were not the best years of my life, and I am not going to pretend that they were.
Makes me cringe too!! Most of our good times were just you and me hanging out being dorks and cracking up. Our favorite thing, always, riding horses and checking’ out the cowboys, oh, and prank calling them too. We were so cowboy crazy (to think my husband won’t even stand next to a horse!!). We were quite the hotties in that 8th grade picture🙄 Caaaaalifornia 🎶. Love you much my dearest and bestest BFF. 🌷