Spring Cleaning

During the healing and growth process one often discovers that there are people in our lives that we don’t need to keep there.

Sometimes we keep people in our lives because we feel obligated.  Sometimes we keep people in our lives because we know that they need us (yes this is true and not even a little narcissistic) and sometimes we keep people in our lives because we want them there.

Let me refer to social media; Facebook specifically.  Some days I would like to get off of Facebook altogether however over time it’s become quite clear to me that in leaving the Facebook world I will know nothing about my far-away-family.  Yes it’s true; I hear about Weddings and babies and sometimes even departures via Facebook; no one picks up the telephone anymore (in fact I personally don’t even have a land line..but I digress).

The biggest ‘Facebook’ friend group for me just happens to be my family; I have a huge family.  I am also from a small town which means I have a higher than average number of people on my Facebook who fit somehow into my past.  Sounds strange maybe coming from a small town but unlike the city, everyone you grew up with in that town are oddly a wee bit family.

The rest of my friends include old work friends, current co-workers, my dance-mom-gang and actual real friends that I see on a regular basis.  They also include (selfishly maybe) people who post amazing pictures that I like to look at, people who have the same interests that I do, or quite frankly people who read my blog! (That is the point of writing one).

Once in a while however I do delete people.  These people have not offended me or pissed me off or done something unspeakable (for the most part); simply put I just have zero interaction with them.  I don’t interact with their page, they don’t interact with mine.  Perhaps I haven’t seen them in over a year or maybe I added them at a bar (I make a lot of friends in the bathroom when I go to the pub). 

Typically when I delete these people they don’t notice; or don’t care and maybe some are grateful because they forgot who I was.

No harm no foul.

Or so I thought.

Most recently I deleted someone who I have quite literally not spoken to in over a year; however I did send them a card in the mail a few months back when I heard a family member had passed, but in a nutshell I saw no need to continue the ‘Facebook Relationship’.  Imagine my surprise when I woke up in the morning to a message asking me “What they had done to deserve a deletion” etc.  When I explained why I had made the choice (listing the same ones above) the response was “I have to be interactive in order to be a fb friend? Lol” and after some back and forth and a posting on her page directed at me “Some people need a lot of attention” I concluded that I had indeed made the right choice.

Without getting into the details of why this relationship kind of faltered she proceeded to say she was finding it difficult to be my friend, that she figured we were drifting apart in our lives and may or may not reconnect in the future’ etc.  It was an expected response from this individual; but it again reminded me that I had made a good choice.  The only thing that confused me was, if what she was saying was I was hard to be friends with then why ever would she have sent the message in the first place?

The only reason I bring this up is because on this journey I’ve met lots of you who also are trying to shed some excess baggage in your lives.  It’s a very difficult task.  Sometimes we hold on to things and people because we think they might become of use to us again someday, or as mentioned above we become obligated to hold onto them.    We hold on to memories that hurt us and old words and all of these things only weigh us down. 

I had no idea when I deleted said ‘friend’ that I was removing as much baggage as I did.  At my age and at this stage in my life I really don’t have the time or energy for that kind of drama; I can’t relate to it.  I am so happy today that I made that decision.  All of this time I’ve been holding on to this person who thought I was difficult to be friends with!  I was holding on to them with the thought or hope that maybe we’d be friends again or reconnect again but the outburst made me realize that I was good.

Just like when you finally clean out your closet and donate all of the clothes that no longer fit you.  Or when you meditate and release all of the negative energy you’ve been holding on to.  It’s the same feeling.

This past year I have ‘cleaned’ up so many things in my life and I feel so free because of it.  No, it’s not a perfect science.  I still have a lot of emotional and mental baggage but I think I’m dealing with that pretty good right now.

There is no better time to make changes than at spring time.  A time for new birth and renewal.

Happy cleaning.