BonBlogs…a work in progress

Golly. This posted started out as one about how I got my gratitude back through an exercise I created for myself. (I needed my gratitude back because I’d been feeling the need to cash in my “get out of LA free” ring for a bit.) I came up with a way back to gratitude and–after only two days at it–I was already sure it was worth sharing.

So I started drafting the post, thinking of how many of the specific details I wanted to share (you’ll see why, later), and then got bombarded with things that made me rant, and I decided the post needed to be both about the new gratitude experience and the stuff that put a “bee in my Bonnie,” as Dyana says.

And then I finished the post and kept it saved as a draft. And it sat…

’til I realized I just didn’t need it any more. I eventually put the non-ranty stuff into a column, because I never want to send that many keystrokes off to the slush pile, but the rest of the post just sat in the drafts folder.

And now I’m a good 16 days into the gratitude experiment and I really must share it. It’s simple. But powerful. And the ranty stuff sooo doesn’t matter. Probably never did. Good.

Because I’m not connected with as many folks on Facebook as I used to be, because I don’t like filling my Twitter stream with lots of direct replies, because I’m seriously contemplating just shutting down my LinkedIn profile altogether due to what it has become in my life, because blogging has become a now-and-then big-ass post activity rather than the daily dose of me that it used to be, I had to get resourceful about how I could do another gratitude experiment, easily.

Of course. Email.

So, just like back in the days of the “gratitude journal” (when, before bed each night, I would list in my bedside journal five things for which I was grateful, no matter how hard the exercise might be on any particular day), I now send one last email before calling it a night. It’s the last thing I do, so I go to bed in a place of gratitude. I think of people in my life and choose that night’s recipient. (No, I’m not gonna tell you who. The decision comes organically. It’s lovely, really.)

The email is simple. It’s short. It’s just a thank you. I don’t do it on a Facebook wall because I don’t need a dozen LIKES to make me feel like I did a good thing. Yes, even writing here about the fact that I am doing it feels a little icky, except for the fact that I’m seeing so many people complaining about being in low places lately that I think this thing that’s fixing me–slowly, and sweetly–might fix you too, if you’d like to try it. I’m all about sharing my toys, and I’m pretty excited about this one. It’s not about replies or “you’re welcome” or an angle or anything other than appreciation… and getting my worldview to be a little more pleasant. I’ll continue to do this every night ’til I run out of people for whom I am grateful. I figure that means an email a night forever.

No, this nightly practice won’t change the world, but it may change me. And anything to shake off the crankypants sounds great sometimes.

I want to let folks know they’re appreciated (quietly, without fanfare, with no agenda beyond letting them know they matter… and shifting my personal peace) while appreciating that 99% of my life is beyond-my-wildest-dreams awesome, rather than fixating on a niggling 1% that seemed particularly inflamed when I started this exercise.

That 1% now? It’s 0.01% today. This exercise is powerful stuff.

So, I’ve now been a streamlined user of the Facebook for several weeks. From 4985 friends to 372. Up another 800 fans at the fan page. No regrets. Life is good. I feel free to post status updates knowing I’m posting to people I know. No strangers. And I can post my more “filtered” concepts at the fan page. Good, good.

Wait. What’s this? A new little panel in the area where ads would be (if I didn’t use the handy Adblock Plus extension in Firefox, that is).

Yup. Even though — as a part of my Scorched Earth Facebook campaign — I deleted all wall posts, all status updates, all links, and all vids placed throughout my page since September 2008, Facebook still has ‘em.

And thanks to the “memorable stories” feature, I can revisit them EVEN THOUGH I CANNOT GET TO THEM, SINCE THEY HAVE BEEN DELETED — BY ME — FROM MY PAGE. Oh, Facebook, you and your evil data collection we all opted into, like it or not. This is just further reminder to behave exactly as my momma always told me to behave: As if everything you do, write, or say is going to end up on the front page of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Thanks, Zuckerberg, for making my mom’s vision of my future a reality, somehow.

Funny. Funny. Funny.

Wow. This is getting intense. My November 1st goal was 100 friends unplugged per day, taking me down to my core group only at Facebook by year-end. Well, one of the benefits to being in-bed-level sick for days and days on end is that the only work I could focus on, some days, was defriending.

And defriend I did! As of this blog post, I am down to 599 (from 4985, just five weeks ago).

At first, it was difficult, because I wanted to be fair. I wanted to apply OCD-like criteria that “If she goes, he goes,” and I would decide that it should happen around the same time so one doesn’t get upset about the other still being on my friends list, and such.

Talk about crazymaking bullshit.

You want to challenge any OCD, fairness neurosis, this is the way to do it. Just know that “everyone is going.” And then you get less “fair” about any of it. It’s only a matter of time ’til everyone’s gone anyway, so out, out, out they go… unless it’s someone who is just so very entertaining, pleasing, valuable on a soul level to me that I want them popping up in my feed daily… and then that person can stay.

For now.

But I keep in the back of my head, “But you’re all going away eventually,” which gives me the freedom to keep some folks around for a bit longer.

And as my friends list goes from truly overwhelming (seriously, you guys, very few of you know what it’s like to have 20 new friend request per day; an inbox filled with dozens of requests for advice, feedback, and attendance at shows; overflowing invitations to screenings and networking events; on top of the real-life/non-industry stuff) to somewhat manageable, I find something fascinating happening.

My OCD-like tendencies to answer every damn post, message, event, or tag no longer make Facebook a hellish place to visit, daily. Because my fan page (which many have graciously started using for interaction, which I greatly appreciate) doesn’t send email alerts or even within-Facebook notifications of interaction, comments, wall posts, etc., I can go to the page and deal with the contact people have made when I’m in the right headspace to deal with it rather than when Facebook alerts me something is going on. (Their hyper-connectivity tools aren’t in place for fan pages. THANK GOODNESS.)

That means I can be filled with grace and love and helpful advice and tolerance for the same questions asked over and over and over again (a favorite was the post from an actor saying she’d looked EVERYWHERE for a mailing address for me but couldn’t find one… and her post was on the wall right NEXT TO the mailing address for Cricket Feet, right there in the margin of the damn fan page) because I’m not constantly being pelted with clutter.

*sigh*

I have space at my Facebook space, for once. THIS is how I should’ve connected from the start. By drawing a line in the sand and stating, “You took my class, you’re IN. You show up for Thirsty Third Thursday, you’re IN. You otherwise thrill my soul somehow and never make me regret spending a moment of energy on you or with you, you’re IN,” I have made my personal Facebook page a truly delightful place to be. (And I still have a few hundred more defriends to do!)

As for people who are mad (seriously. Mad. Weird, right? Ownership issues, much?) at having to interact on my fan page or here at my blog or via Twitter or at LinkedIn or via email or in real life (seriously — is that not enough?), I say we probably are better off learning about the sustainability of our friendship after all. Too fragile to withstand lack of connection in one place? Too damn bad.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve gotten to know everyone better as I let them go. How much time do we really spend lingering on others’ pages? Try it. For me, I was shocked that literally HUNDREDS of my friends use the same damn Marilyn Monroe quote as their favorite on their page. HUNDREDS. Further amused by how many folks will slap up a quote as by “unknown” rather than Googling the dang thing to attribute correctly. *sigh*

Here’s another cool thing: Our Internet was out on Monday and instead of finding ways to do email or check Facebook on my phone, I used the day to do NON-INTERNET-related tasks (many of which had fallen way behind on my to-do list). I constantly wanted to check something online or verify a section I’d written in a document by looking it up on the web, or checking comments on this week’s column, feedback on Bite Me, etc., and instead I HAD TO just live in my space. My REAL space.

It was AMAZING. I seriously recommend everyone take some technology breaks, regularly. Live Amish for a day. See what it’s like to just SIT with yourself and read or think or daydream. HIGHLY recommended. Good for a soul reboot.

As the fabulous Shelley Delayne said in reply to a status update on my page recently, When I saw “March of the Penguins,” I harumphed for a very long time about how the penguins managed to gather together by the thousands without having cellphones, FB, or evites and yet I can’t seem to get a group of friends together for lunch even with all three! So every time you write about “unplugging,” I see penguins scooting through the snow and cheering.

Me too! For someone like me who has trouble with boundaries and wants to be accessible to everyone, this is a huge step — and one I’m taking without apology. As I’ve said to anyone who has asked, I love you all and will miss the easy connection… but value the more effort-based ones I know we’ll make.

Let’s pledge more facetime in 2011. No, it’s not easy, but imagine how much fun we’ll have!

[Looking for the big-ass post, Facebook: How I Unplugged? Click that!]