Hey Facebook, Today is a Holiday!

Today is Memorial Day and therefore my social media is filled with people thanking those who lost their lives in uniform. Of course, the rest of the year most people don’t spend a single thought on the brave men and women fighting overseas, but today they feel socially obligated to publicly give their thanks, so they do. It makes me wonder why the need for these public declarations is so paramount to the lives of my friends. Everything needs to be public anymore. Public announcement of being in a friendship, relationship, engagement, marriage, child, miscarriage, divorce, break-up, break-down, promotion, hiring, firing, job change, college graduation, death of a friend or family member, working out, eating out, sleeping in, cleaning, and of course the obligatory food photos.

What happened to privacy and intimacy, thoughts without shouting them from a keyboard? I am guilty of plenty of these things. I have posted gifts from boyfriends and bragged about how much I am loved; The typical my-boyfriend-is-better-than-yours post. My Instragram is filled with food pictures and selfies. I have complained about college courses and teachers, tests and being forced to show up to class. I have mentioned my sloth habits more times than I care to admit and have more than once publicly patted myself on the back for doing the adult-thing of cleaning my room. I am not innocent of over-sharing or shouting my feelings from the rooftop that is the Internet, but I am getting to the age of asking why? Why do we do this? Why do we feel the need to display our thoughts, emotions, life-events, and gratitude to people who don’t care or will never see it? What happened to simply wearing a red poppy on Memorial Day? Quiet observance and gratitude, when did that stop being enough?

I have stopped posting my relationship status on Facebook and don’t post the cliché
“Merry Christmas” or whatever other holiday greetings, and I have found something really nice and freeing in that. My relationship is shared with my boyfriend and the people close to us. My family and friends know I am seeing him, but the world doesn’t know. It seems better this way, more personal and intimate. My holidays are shared with family and friends. Occasionally I will post a photo of the event (mostly because it is so ridiculous) or I will commonly post racist and absurd statements from my father (mostly because they are hilarious and should be shared with the world), but I try and live in the moment without inviting the rest of the world into my personal life.

Fortunately, none of my friends or family member has died while serving. I don’t know that type of loss. I don’t understand it. I know what it is like to be terrified for a friend going into war. I know what it is like to anticipate the phone call or email so you know they are still doing well in the desert. But, I have never experienced that type of sudden and traumatic loss. Hopefully I never will. Maybe if I had, I would feel differently about these broadcasts of gratitude. Instead, I would rather thank a friend for their service and provide sympathy for the friends and brothers they lost over coffee, drinks, or happy hour. I would rather send a text message or a card. I would rather let them know on March 5 or December 2 or August 12, or any of random day, because something inside me said so and I would rather let them know in more personal method, not via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, whatever, even if it is something as impersonal and private as a text message, I would rather let them know that I appreciate and love them without also having to broadcast it to the world.

I am starting to find the love and gratitude posted on the Internet to be disingenuous. It is a sad day when a text message is more personal.