For the love of facebook.

As most people know I am a big fan of facebook. I have gone through periods of being just short of obsessed. Looking back I can honestly say that during the periods of obsession it has mostly been because those were times in my life when I was looking for a distraction and facebook provided it. I don't play computer games, I don't watch much tv, and I certainly don't watch movies... so facebook was where I turned.
Facebook has been good to me. Not facebook itself but my friends on facebook. What an amazing thing that these young guys came up with. The whole social networking idea is genius. The idea that we can become 'friends' with people that we haven't seen or spoken to in ages is wonderful. Or become 'friends' with people you have never even met in person but maybe meet through a friend of a friend or a blog or whatever the case may be... Some people aren't into it, I personally know people that want none of it, they do not want to be in touch with those people. They can't figure out what the big deal is. Why would you want to re-connect with people you obviously didn't find important enough to stay connected with. You know why? Because people change, we grow up. We end up going through similar life journey's and find support in one another along the way.
During the last two years my family has been on a tremendous journey. We have had some major struggles and some serious life changing situations... through it all I had the support of so many. So many amazing friends. I can't even tell you how many people along the way have said to me 'wow, I really wish I would have gotten to know you better in high school, I think we could have been great friends'. In high school we are kids. We are judgemental, we stick with what we know. We don't venture outside our comfort zone. As adults we open ourselves up to 'different' we let our guards down and we hopefully let our insecurities go by the wayside. People that may have intimidated us at 16 are no longer quite as intimidating.
I have a friend on facebook who is going through a very stressful breakup of an abusive relationship. I can imagine she is stressed, sad and lonely. But every day she has been able to log on, post a status and get immediate response/support/love from her 'friends'. People have reached out to her and want to help. How awesome is that?
I know for me personally when things were bad, real bad some of the people that I really thought I could count on, the support that I always thought for sure I would have, it was gone. Several people in my circle didn't get what we were going through. Didn't understand that just getting out of bed in the morning was hard for me most days. Knowing that every day was going to suck was so hard to take. I have never ever said this on here or out loud to anyone but my husband and a couple of really close friends but there were times when I was on the verge of a breakdown and would consider taking my own life. It was bad. It was really bad. I shut down. I lost it. But at the end of the day I would sit down in front of my computer and see all the support and love from these people and things would be a little better. I saw that other people were going through similar situations and I was able to talk to people who didn't judge, who just seemed to 'get' me.
I didn't mean for this post to get so deep, my intentions were to keep it light and upbeat, just make it about sharing the facebook love... but sometimes I start writing and my emotions get the best of me.
I have to also mention how awesome facebook is for business networking. For spreading the word when you are trying to promote something. If it wasn't for facebook I would have only had two sales on etsy! lol. My friends support me and I so appreciate it. I hope that they think the same thing about me. I really hope that I have provided some of the same love and support to some of these people that they have to me.
The bottom line, the moral to this story is.. facebook rocks.