Sharing

I never thought of myself as a particularly private person - I mean, hey, I have a blog for crying out loud! A personal blog! Filled with my thoughts and stories and my very own day-to-day in my own little pocket of the world. But today I was driving with Wade, and he told me that he appreciated that I limit the personal content I share on Facebook. About a year ago I did a major Facebook cull and removed all of the people that I didn't talk to on a regular basis. A lot of these people I cared about - I simply did not feel comfortable with them knowing all of my stuff. I did keep a few who lived overseas who I wanted to stay in contact with. But everyone from high school - gone. Everyone from my old workplaces - gone. After doing that, I felt a little more breathing room to share personal thoughts on Facebook. But, I decided, there was still a definite line between sharing and oversharing. I love sharing funny things that happen to me, or anything that I think will bring a smile to someones face. I hate bragging, so I always check my posts to see if they come off that way when I share news or whatever. I also love sharing nice photos, but I don't want to bombard everyone's newsfeed with pictures of me. After all, everyone who I'm friends with knows what I look like. When we got our engagement pictures back I only posted one up on Facebook and kept the rest as something private for only myself and Wade and our families and close friends to see.

Now I'm wondering if it's enough. Why do I have Facebook? I'm starting to wonder if I can rationalize having a page when I see almost all of my friends regularly. After all, the information anyone posts on Facebook has been described as a "virtual tattoo". Permanent. Forever. Does everyone need to know my stuff? Am I simply trying to craft a visual facade of my "perfect" life? My sisters will laugh when they read this because I threaten to delete Facebook all the time and never do it. I still don't know if I will. Just thinking about it.

- H