And a Week Goes By
The past week has been a blur. It's not that anything amazing or horrendous happened. Life just blurred from one day to the next. We went to see a property with the nephew and his wife. They're in the process of selling their home and buying another. It's been stressful and quite frankly we're not sure what their next move will be. You can give advice and make suggestions but they're the ones with the big decision.
I've got nocturnal the past few days. Allergies are kicking me in the backside and the news on television never seems to get better. We're in the northeast so our state, while still battling new cases of COVID-19, has hopefully come through the worst of it. But our state is still in the process of re-opening. It's been slow because the state government worries about upticks in cases. And as we begin to adapt to the new normal, states like Florida and Texas are reporting record numbers of new cases of COVID. Then again, the leadership of those states didn't implement full Stay at Home orders, require masks and ramp up testing. Unfortunately their residents are now paying the price.
Black Lives Matter protests are still going strong but the news media have moved on and fail to cover them. There was a time when newspapers and television reported what was going on simply for the sake of getting the information out to the people. Now, they report on what keeps their ratings in tact. And they report on that story ad nauseum. I miss the days of Walter Cronkite, Harry Reasoner, David Brinkley and Dan Rather.
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I spent time justifying my decision to delete my social media accounts. My family doesn't get it.
"Just keep the account even if you don't use it. There's no reason to delete it! You could decided to return."
First, I shouldn't have to justify my decision. It's not like J and I have packed up and moved to an area void of cell phone towers and internet access. I survived 42 years without social media in my life. Then I dumped another 16 years into multiple platforms. The reward for dumping the accounts has been time. Time to read, to paint, to study a new language. Time to learn new crafts and spend time enjoying my life. My kids (34, 30 and 25) think it's because I'm nearly 60 years old. I'm pretty sure that's not the issue since I've always embraced technology. But I'm tired of arguing with them.
"But we'll miss you and you won't be able to see the pictures and stories we post!"
That's what I hear from family members who don't live nearby. It's as if they forget we have a land line, mobile phones, email and snail mail. J left Facebook when the Cambridge Analytical scandal surfaced and he hasn't returned. I left later that year but returned in June 2019. Within a month I was contemplating deleting the new account but stuck it out for "family". But there's not a whole lot of interaction going on between family and friends. My younger sister and my sister-in-law are on Facebook each and every day. My older sister appears now and then but seldom posts except to re-post something from someone else. My mother-in-law is on Facebook all day as well and she shares posts from others all day long. For the past year the posts are political. But interaction? None. I'm sorry but clicking a button to "Like" a post isn't interacting with family. I get more interaction from spam mail.
Blech. This ranty post suits my mood. It's been that sort of week.
