Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, The Next Big Thing I Don’t Even Know About Yet: We all use these social media platforms or live vicariously through the many people who do. Our day begins, ends, and runs on and around these sites/apps (though perhaps with a side of coffee). In fact, we use these mediums so frequently that they become as integral and as nonchalant as the daily events of our lives: Another tweet, another hasty camera phone photo, another link of cute kittens in outfits, or videos of compromised adults you’re glad your kids didn’t grow up to be.
We are inundated with so much information that we rarely have or take the time to think about the meaning in all these posts. We get information overload to the point that we quickly “like” our friends’ posts without much thought and scroll through our feeds at warp speed, hastily moving from one friend’s soapbox to the next. Sometimes we even get fed up with posts to the extent that we abandon our social media accounts altogether, searching for a break from the chaos. So you can imagine my surprise when I clicked on a suggested Facebook link expecting more nonsense and instead found something meaningful.
In all honesty, I clicked on the link Facebook called "See Your 2013 Year in Review" as more of a, “Let’s find out how dumb Facebook really is,” challenge, mainly because I doubted that whatever critical highlights Facebook had strained out of hundreds of posts would be relevant. Instead, I found myself reliving a year in which a stunning number of major things had happened. It’s not so much that I had forgotten these things; rather, I hadn’t taken the time to think of these day-to-day events as a year fully lived, events that added up to a whole much greater than its parts.
I could make a list of some of these things (e.g. sister-in-law getting married, finding out my hubby and I were going to be an aunt and uncle, my mother retiring and moving across the country and buying her dream house and dream car, finally getting Lasik and snowmobiles, Auburn getting into the BCS championship again, and so on) but the list itself sounds trivial and mostly uninteresting. What wasn’t trivial was seeing and feeling the impact of a year in which many more things had happened than I consciously remembered and wondering what things I hadn’t posted that I had probably already forgotten about. Perhaps even more meaningful was taking stock of the things I haven’t yet posted because they are a string of day-to-day calculations and strategic movements that might transpire enough to become posts next year.
I found myself thinking what it would be like if I had a record like Facebook's "Year in Review" from grade school, high school, or college to remember all the things that happened that I have doubtless forgotten but wish I could remember. Of course there is a particularly nostalgic feeling produced by going through these former years leafing through handwritten notes, cursive yearbook comments, and torn diary pages while listening to recorded cassette tape conversations and watching VHS videos of major life events. But there is something about being able to see the sum of a year on one concise, image-splattered page that seems a little more impactful, at least in this social media-crazed moment.
Both my 2013 and my whirlwind tour of it thanks to Facebook can best be summed up by one post in particular, dated May 13, 2013.
As I've gotten older, I've found that the most major milestones in life often pass quietly on otherwise ordinary days, while you're in meetings, doing errands, driving etc. This afternoon my mom closed on the sale of the home we built when I was 4 that has been "home" for 29 years. The pic below was from the day we moved in. A new chapter has now been set in motion, but I will always remember growing up there fondly. I feel blessed to have had "home" in one place for so many years.
My brand new room in 1984. I got to pick the colors and was really psyched about the Care Bears bed set.
As that post stated, my whole life changed irrevocably on a day filled with conference calls and traffic lights. And my response to that was typical of today’s society, to make a quick Facebook post and move on. So who knew, Facebook, that you could surprise me by actually being relevant to reflecting more broadly on another year gone by. Who would have guessed that the whole of 1984 could be so vividly in my face in 2013. They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. This one is worth 1,000 memories that I hope to never forget. Here’s to 2014 and to hoping that next year’s review will be similarly kind, warm, and reflective of a life well lived, for both me and my 705 friends.