TMI

I was catching up with a friend recently and telling her about my time at Arrowmont, the catalog I’d created and how I was getting ready for a big show. “Oh, yeah, I know,” she said, “I read all about it on your blog.” While I was glad she’d taken the time to read what I’d been writing about, I was struck by how her knowledge of my activities shut down the conversation. Without meaning to, she essentially told me that my news was old news to her.

It’s amazing how much we share now that the Internet, Facebook, blogging, texting and other forms of social media have taken over our lives. We know what people have for dinner, where they’re dining, who they’re dining with and what they think of their meal before the check has come. We know who’s in a relationship, who’s married, who just broke up and, in the case of Steve Jobs, who just died. It’s fun…and a little scary.

When Facebook made their now infamous changes recently, I took stock of my list of friends and decided to clean house. I also revisited my security preferences and locked everything down as tight as I could. What bothers me is that I know I’ve missed something along the way. While I don’t want to delete my FB account, I have backed off my usage. But it’s not all horrible. I have reconnected with several great people and I stay in touch with many I don’t see often enough even though we live in the same town. I also get to know people better and enjoy some of the things they share.

I love blogging, I love connecting on FB and I love hearing about things in the lives of my friends and family. But in the future, if we’re having a conversation and it turns to something you’ve read about on my blog or FB page, will you give me a chance to tell you more about my experience? Because I’ll guarantee I still have stories to share and experiences I never post in public. If you don’t give me a chance to share, you’ll never get to hear about all the really good stuff I didn’t want made public!