At lunch I will seek a piece of cheese or cold cuts from the refrigerator, its interior covered in mold. My mother asks me to find something in her bedroom where I will literally have to climb over boxes and rummage through piles of clothes like a squirrel foraging for an acorn that it knows must be there. Before I shower, I wonder where I will find a towel, the linen closet long occupied by countless magazines from decades gone by. The hallways and stairs are narrower each day, but I learn how to maneuver through them without falling or stubbing my toes.
I walk the floors and am careful not to slip on a cat's hairball, vomit, or feces. If I find them, I clean them, yet there are always more. When I do clean them, I incur the wrath of my mother, who takes the gesture as a direct insult toward her housekeeping skills. The house wreaks with an odor, which most would find nauseating, though I have grown used to it, my asthmatic lungs taking the full brunt of its force. Friends no longer come over because they are not invited, for I fear for their safety and know that I would not be able to handle the embarrassment of these conditions.
I live in filth.
This is the home in which I live. This is a hoarder's home.
For years I had no name for the space in which I lived while a child. I did not know it was a "thing" until I was channel surfing and came upon the show, "Hoarders". Poof! There is was! Like a light coming on, all of a sudden I knew what to call it and I knew that I wasn't the only one who had lived in it. It was strangely comforting while being distressing. I felt for the children. I remembered what it was like, it all came back to me.
There is no true way to describe what it is like to live in a hoarder's house. The only way I can articulate it is to say that it is a consuming feeling, like you are being swallowed up. By stuff. Your room gradually getting smaller and smaller like you are Alice in Wonderland, growing larger, while your surroundings shrink. It is pure chaos and confusion. It is like living inside of someone else's "mind clutter". All of their inner turmoil being forced upon you like mental vomit, manifested in physical form. Spewed out into every corner with a strange sense of nothing being important and vitally important, all at the same time. All things are laid out on an even plane with almost no way to decipher value -- countless volumes of magazines saved in the same haphazard way that a family photo album is stored. You are in a negative energy web and there is very little hope of breaking free.
So, you may be saying to yourself: What the hell does this have to do with Facebook?
What is has to do with Facebook, at least for me, is that feeling of negativity and being closed in by other people's "stuff". All of their "stuff." Every day. Good, bad, mundane, important, positive and negative all being played out on a level plane. But, it is mostly negative. Overwhelmingly negative. So and so is complaining about her job - AGAIN. So and so is complaining about the weather - AGAIN. So and so emailed me about my inappropriate humor - AGAIN. Yup, I was surrounded and it felt familiar. I was in the spew. I was surrounded by the mental clutter of 200+ people's heads, some posting 15-20 thoughts day! I was in the energy web, and it wasn't a good one. I began to get more migraines, partly from staring at the computer screen and partly out of feelings of irritation. On advice from my migraine doctor, I took time off from social media.
And....
It. Was. Awesome.
No more "stuff"! No more negativity! No more mental clutter occupying my time!!!!
Ahhhhh...
Oh, I tried to go back. I felt the pull. But, when I did, it was way too hard to catch up, and I wasn't sure I wanted to catch up. I wanted to be free of the need to catch up. I wanted to be free of the pull. I deleted the app from my phone and breathed a sigh of relief.
While you could feel offended by my statements of disdain regarding my news feed, if you are logical, you will realize that you are in the spew too. You know you roll your eyes more than once as you scroll. You know you tell people to "shut up" in your head. You know it's a love/hate roller coaster that you are riding.
I just came to a point where I wanted to get off. I wanted out of the negative energy web. I wanted a positive space to occupy.
Of course I do have another small Facebook account for people whom I encounter on a regular basis, who are not overwhelmingly negative. However, it too, remains deactivated at the moment. Because I just don't feel like it. No offense. No hard feelings toward anyone. No lack of kindness in my heart. No lack of caring about anybody who is my friend or acquaintance.
I may occasionally pop on and post a status or check in with some friends, or I might start a blog to log all of my random odd thoughts. Who knows.
But, for now, I just don't feel like it.
That's right. I just don't feel like it.
And it's great.
Yup.
