Amazing. It's the little things and the big changes.

Today my boss called me amazing. It might seem like a little thing, but she's something of a hero to me. A woman who has been fighting for the rights of queers like me and families like mine for almost 2 decades; the most determined, dedicated, and powerful provincial level politician, having become the longest sitting Opposition MLA in Alberta's history and having been the catalyst for positive, feminist change in that time. So, coming from her, that made me feel special and good. Keeping in mind as well that, at my last job, I had a boss who was such a homophobe (I don't know why she hired me, to be honest; we were in grad school together so she knew) that she couldn't once bring herself to utter my partner's name, though she did rounds in our department every morning, asking about people's families. When she stopped at my desk, faced with photos of my two bio children and two step children, my partner and me, she could barely contain her discomfort, usually managing to stammer out a question about my evening or some such. She did her utmost to make my family invisible. In that job I got the workplace in the news multiple times for initiatives I'd initiated and undertaken, I spoke at several conferences, I published regularly in a review journal, and I made it into one of the most prestigious journals in our field for innovation. But at my performance review, she wanted to talk about my "excessive" use of sick time (which was less than the time allowed) because of my children's specialist appts. (Other staff in the dept did bare minimum and exceeded sick time, with her consent.) It was suggested I file a human rights lawsuit against her... but I just wanted out, away from a person so hateful and ignorant. I could list more that she did; the lawyer I spoke to said it was an easy win case, but it would take time and energy and frankly, she'd stripped me of that. So I quit. My mental health was more important; my family was worth more. I spent some time figuring out what to do. I loved the field I had gone to school to work in, but most positions in the field were either not compatible with the predictable scheduling needs of my bio kids (they have autism, as I've said, and need routine in a serious way, a way I believe should be respected) or they were jobs I didn't want to do (I might be trained to do Records Management for an oil company with an MLIS, but doing such a job would be as soul-sucking as the one I had left.) So I waited. And waited. And then the job with the politician I most admire came available. And I babbled nervously through what might have been my worst interview performance to date (most stellar would have been the phone interview I did that landed me the job in Toronto back in 2004 when I had built a website to guide my interviewers visually through some of the questions that were less easy to do by phone, and I had them mooing and quacking and laughing with me...) But I ended up working for her through a few twists of fate. And now I get to do some amazing things, be part of some amazing things. And today, I got told I was amazing by someone I have always thought is amazing. It might have been one of the best Christmas presents ever (though she took us to The Nutcracker Unhinged as a Christmas gift and that was pretty great too.) 2014 has been a trying year in many, many areas of my life, of my family's life. But work? It's the best job I've ever had (and I've had some amazing jobs with some inspiring people, the above mentioned aside) and I am so grateful, not just that I get to do what I do, but who I get to do it with. Yes, my politician boss who is a superstar is wonderful. I also get to work with three other amazing women. For a while with a ridiculously fun and wonderful man who I affectionately call my work husband or my beard, depending on the context. I have a feeling 2015 will be more amazing, whether the word is directed at me or not. Things are on an upturn. Despite the horrific state of provincial politics right now, I think we'll see better in the year ahead. And I'll get to continue working in an amazing office with amazing people and use the word amazing and FABULOUS as much as I want with as much gayness as I like and I will be valued for it. That, my friends, is fucking amazing. (I am too, too tired to proof read this, so my apologies for spelling or grammar errors, run on sentences, or any other writing missteps.)

I Jumped Off The Facebook and Twitter Bandwagons

About two weeks ago, maybe more, I'm not sure but almost certainly not as long ago as a month, I left Facebook and Twitter.  I was an early adopter of both.  I used both, Facebook more so, heavily.  Initially, my Facebook usage was about staying in touch with people "back home."  That was perhaps a year into Facebook, when critical mass had been hit such that I could reach a couple hundred people with a single status update.
Those were the days when Facebook provided the opening to any statement, "I am..." and we all dutifully filled in the blank.
So I posted photos of my daughter, eventually of my son (his birth being what my cousin dubbed The First Live Facebook Birth four days into 2008,) I accepted friend requests from people I hadn't seen since kindergarten and vice versa because that was how it all seemed to work.  Former teachers, forgotten childhood friends resurrected, distant fourth cousins... at one point my friend list was approaching 1000.
That's when I realized I needed to cull.  Just because I COULD locate the girl who was my "blood sister" (we pricked our fingers with a safety pin and then pressed them together, making our blood forever joined, though when I moved at the end of that grade 2 year I didn't see her again or miss her) I didn't NEED to pull her back into my life.  If our lives had gone different ways at 8 years old, it was probably for a reason, right?
But there were people who couldn't be culled.  Imagine the ripples of disconnecting from a family member?  (Yes, that didn't go well and I won't dredge up that tale here.)
From 2007 up until two weeks ago (or thereabouts,) I used social media to share, to complain, to celebrate, to jump onto a soapbox, to connect, to reach out, to find community... and I began to come to the realization that more of my life was being spent maintaining all that than actually living.  Probably hours a day (I didn't count, I'm guessing) went into quick check on timelines, quick updates, a photo upload here and there, a brief comment on someone's status.  But there was no actual engagement.  A sentence or two don't substitute for a multiple-paged letter to an old friend with whom I want to maintain contact.  The click of a 'like' button on a photo is not equivalent to a paragraph asking how the child in the photo is progressing with an issue about which I once knew.
Facebook had become for me too many people, too much information, too many things to follow, and a constant feeling of not being able to keep up with anyone.  Keep up with who?  A cousin I haven't seen in decades? People I've felt obligated to be 'friends' with for various reasons, friendship not one of them? Hours that might be spent writing some poems, a letter to my grandmother, letters to the old friends I DO want to be in touch with, essays, art... the list goes on.  I did not let it interfere with my children; Facebook and Twitter simply took up the majority of my time outside of work and parenting.  So it was interfering with my real world.  With time with my wife (rather than parallel Facebooking beside my wife.)  In short, it was a time suck.
Twitter was worse.  Twitter lead me down the road of comments to brief to convey meaningful thoughts and almost all with complete strangers, often twisting into arguments.  The "I can't go to sleep, someone on the internet is being stupid" joke was a sad reality of my time on Twitter.

None of this is to say that all interactions on those two social media platforms were bad.  Not at all.  I DID find community with other people who have autism and/or have children with autism; I DID get to share photos with many people genuinely interested with just one click.  I often heard about local or world news (real news, not celebrity births or sports scores) first on those platforms.  I often had good conversations with people who debated respectfully, people whose ideas I considered and which sometimes shifted my own in various ways.

That said, for me, the negative elements outweighed the positive.  Too much time.  Wading through photos of peoples' dinner to get to info about the meat of their lives.  Ignoring the racist/sexist/homophobic/Islamophobic/transphobic/conservative and frankly, just plain stupid comments made by individuals I felt obligated to maintain as "friends." And the feeling that all of it was just cursory, just a skim of the lives of the individuals I want to engage with, the people I want in my life in a real way, not a single-sentence-about-weather way.

So I jumped.  I jumped right off the Facebook train and left the Twitterverse trailing the train.

In the days immediately following my departure, I felt lighter.
In the weeks that followed by departure, I realized that my thoughts had actually changed during the 8 years I spent using primarily Facebook with doses of twitter.  I noticed that my thoughts formed as if they had an audience beyond my head, as if they were all potential fodder for tweets or status updates.  In fact, my brain was parsing how I viewed the world in soundbites; if I had a complex thought, I automatically began the process of converting it to a shorter, simpler, more one-or-two-sentence sharable tidbit.  I say this in the past tense, but it is still happening.  I am disturbed by it.  I am trying to change it.  This blog is part of that attempt.

I haven't written at length, aside from in a professional context, in years now.  A paragraph felt like big writing two months ago.  So I'm trying to write more and write longer.  Here, on this blog but also in letters and my journal and in word processors, resurrecting long-abandonned stories, ideas, unwritten essays.

It will be a process.  This little engine needs grease and use, polish and attention, to re-establish herself.  Please be patient as I stumble through.  I've never gone through the process of recovering from socialmediaitis before.