I skipped Day 20. And yes, I'm a day behind posting for Day 21, I know. But back to Day 20. I'm taking a pass. Want to know why? It's because I dropped my iPhone in the dog water. Early in the morning. So that set the tone for the day. It wasn't that I wasn't grateful on Day 20, it's just that I, gasp, didn't have my phone.
Which brings me to Day 21. I'm grateful for technology. That may sound dumb, or weird, and the person I thought I was 15 years ago would have been horrified to hear what I'm about to say. Let me tell you a story though.
When I had my first baby, Erin, I had no laptop and no smart phone. I did not text. I emailed from work. I was employed as a developer and coder. I was not, though, a techie who took my enthusiasm home. I had ended up in the technology field. I had not set a path for it. And I was deeply ambivalent about the implications (and distractions) of technology. But back to that baby. I can see now how isolated I was then. I literally spent my days on maternity leave sitting in a la-z-boy rocker holding a baby who slept most of the time. When something didn't feel right, I had the options of trying to track down friends who had babies (most of them back working and, really, few and far between for me), talk to my husband who was usually equally puzzled, or call our pediatrician at the time (fairly old school, who blew off most of our first-time parent questions most unhelpfully).
The house was so. so. quiet. I watched movies to fill the space. I nursed and rocked and chatted with baby and it was lovely. But I was very alone once David went back to work. It was me, two cats, a dog and a lump of a baby, a quite wonderful lump, but still a lump.
Fast forward to my second baby. This time I was hooked into FB and an online community of local moms and a bevy of friends who were texters, emailers, smart phone users. This time around, I did not feel the loneliness. But I wasn't just distracted. I wasn't simply fighting off boredom. And I certainly wasn't not having those lovely quiet moments with baby. What I was doing was being supported, being connected and being buoyed. Friends I met via electronic means brought me food, answered my "is this normal" questions at 2am, played WWF with me deep in the night when I was up nursing. Shared jokes, shared tears, shared all the little daily revelations that come with baby.
I can't count the number of real-live friends I have a) met or b) fostered through FB and email. I would have been skeptical years and years ago when I thought long and hard about the dangers of online communication and (dis)connection. Today, I know it can work. I have had deeply intimate conversations via email. Once, after having discussions via email, I then ran into a newish friend (K, you know who you are) at a parenting workshop and all that we'd been chatting about was there between us so that we could pick up the conversation and I could cry a little and she could give me a hug and I would feel so much better. That is not just technology. But where had we done a large part of our chatting? On Facebook and via email.
The friendships are real, the support is real, but I must be grateful for the hand technology has played in making it happen. I must acknowledge my own reliance on social media in giving me, a person who can be shy, a forum to be funny and honest and to connect with ease with folks I am just getting to know as well as ones who know me inside and out.
I know that there are those who don't get it, who still raise eyebrows at the thought of it. But gosh darn it, I fully admit it. I am grateful, damn grateful, for Facebook and Twitter and blogs and email. Truly, truly grateful. And I also don't think Zuckerberg is that bad of a guy.
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