If you are mid-30s to mid-40s then you are like me. Social media was not a thing until we were adults. MySpace was our first taste at social media. We all became website coders. Remember when we learned how to customize our Top 4 to Top 8 and then Top 16! Then it was adding a song that would play when someone visited your profile and then you could create a mini playlist! Our lives were surveys that answered all those security questions we have to answer today but that wasn't a thing yet, remember!
Then in the mid-2000s, we were introduced to Facebook. Slowly everyone started to shift to Facebook. It was basic. More basic than MySpace and yet we ditched MySpace and Tom for Facebook and Mark. Maybe it was because Mark didn't "make" us be friends with him like Tom did. We didn't have cool backgrounds to code, there was no rhyme or reason how your friends appeared, no music. You could share updates on your life and pictures. You had to go to another person's page and leave a post to start a convo because there wasn't a messaging feature. That person couldn't comment on your post so they had to go to your profile and leave a post. Eventually we could add videos, YouTube links only (and only in the comments), and now everything I see is just links to articles, sharing a funny meme or post, and rarely a genuine post.
I don't remember when Facebook started doing "On This Day" or when they officially create the Memory tab for most of the year I enjoy reading my memories going back about 15 years but then there are some that spark terrible memories. I see posts of going to the Harry Potter premiere and I know that it was a dark time for me. I had split from my husband at the time but was still in the process of getting divorced and hadn't moved away yet. I see pictures I shared from the beaches and hikes that I took with a friend that was there for me and remember the horrible comments that were left calling me the worst names from people that I had considered my military family for close to a decade.
Friday I saw a post about a much needed leg stretch and it was at a truck stop in Oregon. My mom and come down with one of her friends to help me move. I had my tiny mustang loaded down as well as our friend's truck bed (covered with a tarp) and the inside of her truck. Sure I'm also seeing new mom posts from 5 years ago with my little girl. Moments that I was treasuring because I had wanted to become a mom for so long. Then there are these sprinkled in.
I love my husband. I love his boys. I love our daughter. I love our family. I hate seeing these memories from a time I felt like I failed. I remember sitting in the living room of the home my first husband and I bought trying to determine if I was going to stay to work things out or leave. All the reasons to stay had to do with finances. He had convinced me to close my own bank account and have a joint account except I wasn't an official account holder, just an authorized user. He wanted me to work but then wanted me to just stay home. He was emotionally unavailable. I couldn't get the man to tell me he loved me. Sitting on the couch thinking about how I had no money, no way to afford to take care of myself, I knew that it wouldn't be fair to either of us for me to stay just because I couldn't afford to live on my own.
I know I'm not the only person to have gone through a divorce. My parents got divorced when I was in my late 20s and I remember my mom telling me that she was so angry because she would never get to have a 50th wedding anniversary. It wasn't that she was afraid she wouldn't find someone and get married again but she would have to live to be almost 100 to have a 50th anniversary.
Part of me wants to remove those memories. The ones I know were posted leading up to my separation, after my separation and getting divorced so that way I don't have to relive those moments whenever I see them. Sure it was a lifetime ago (12 years ago last month) but there are just some memories and years of our lives that are just hard to read about. I wouldn't remove all of my posts from when I lived in Oregon. The friends I made, some of which I still get to call my friends, the BBQs we hosted, the fun times, the pictures from those fun times, I want those memories to come back every year...just not the end of the marriage ones.
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