October, 2009

Before anyone starts to hyperventilate about the title, let me just add… “at least it seems to be for me…” I do believe I have become conditioned to think in 140-character increments. Something I can’t explain in 140 characters? Oh, that’s fine. I’ll blog it. Something I don’t feel like writing? No problemo! I’ll just vlog it. No one seems to be responding on Twitter? Hahah… no worries! Facebook and MySpace are always there to save the day I’ve developed a dependency on being plugged in. I cook in 5 minute intervals… stir, whip, spray, pour, flip … RUN TO CHECK TWEETDECK! … And, oh wait… what’s this? {I LOST A FOLLOWER?!} What did I say? Did I do something wrong? The horror!

“Hi, my name is Kathleen and I have an internet addiction. Moreso than that, I am addicted to social media.“

It’s becoming such a problem that I cannot repeat what someone says without the overwhelming urge to precede their statement with RT. When I laugh, “LOL” crosses my mind. When I get frustrated, *ugh* flashes before my eyes. SOMEONE HELP ME… My reality is being taken over by – gasp – the virtual world! I wake up in the morning and no matter how badly I have to pee, the first thing on my mind is, “Oh my, I’ve been sleeping for a whole FOUR hours… must.Check.EMAIL!” If I stop at a red light, you guessed it… I’ve got Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook on group speed text so that I can update on the fly

I can’t take a photo without uploading it to DropShots. I can’t even cook a large meal without TwitPic-ing it. Videos? Directly to YouTube! I stalk my site stats. “Hmmm… I wonder who that is from Denver?  … Wow! Someone in Baton Rouge viewed 387 pages. *What, no comments?!?!?* … Wow my visitors have increased by 33% since last month. YAY!” If I’m not going to be around, I schedule tweets with HootSuite. To avoid being late posting my Wordless Wednesday meme post, I schedule it too. LOL If my internet signal goes weak and I can’t connect, I start panicking. Like – seriously – panicking. As in, someone-hand-me-a-paper-bag panicking…

What’s my point? Social media is my drug of choice. What is it about everyone knowing my every move, and vise versa, that is so super appealing to me? Why can’t I just walk away and not wonder who is LOLing or who is OMGing or who has @mentioned me and without caring whether or not anyone has ‘liked’ my new status? What am I – a networking crackhead? Even famous quotes become distorted in this tormented little mind of mine – like “as a man thinketh, he shall SO blog.”

I need therapy.

Ahhh… I think I’ll choose the poor man’s alternative: I’ll lay down and tweet about it

Written by KAT ROBERTSON
Originally posted on MomDot.com

So it is one of the facts of life, the life I dreamt of all my life – my husband, me & my son together forever. Until one day I woke up to the reality that although I’d been fighting for a long time, I could not fight any longer: my husband and I were splitting up.

The year of 2008 was a busy time for us. We married in January, welcomed our precious baby boy in June and bought our first house in October. Things seemed perfect. This is the life every woman could dream of.

Well, on the outside.

Fast forward to July 2009. It is a warm, summer afternoon, I was just home from work. My husband was picking up the baby boy from daycare and I was sitting on the porch excited for them to come home. He sat down next to me on the porch and said, “This isn’t working, I want a divorce.” We had only been married a little over a year and a half. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. So we pretended to be working things out for another month until we couldn’t pretend any longer. He came home one evening and said he was moving out and so began the shuffle of trying to provide some normalcy in our precious boy’s life.

We tried marriage counseling, but both parties have to be willing. Sure I’m a flawed individual, but I sure wasn’t the one who drove this ship into the ground; yet I was the only one fighting. I fasted, I prayed, and one day God spoke. He said:

“Go home.”

So, I’m here in New Mexico. After being on the east coast for the past 7 years, after establishing a life in Baltimore, I’m home in New Mexico. I have no clue what will happen today or tomorrow, let alone 5 years down the line, but I know that when God spoke to me, I listened.

The pieces to a broken heart can be mended. This is all fresh to me. I’ve only been home for 3 weeks. So I’m not sitting on a soapbox saying get over it. I’m still hurting, but I am also healing. My focus shifted from trying to please my husband, who had left our marriage long before he physically left the house, to pleasing God and making sure my son experiences joy everyday. He is so sweet and my life is devoted to making sure he has everything he needs.

I hold no bitterness towards my husband for what he has done. I pray for his healing as well because I want him to be a fantastic father to our son. Why hold on to hurt and anger when we are tied together for the rest of our lives by a blessing from God? I will let my son’s innocence and his love be my daily reminder that God is love, and we should always operate in love.

So, before the divorce papers are filed and the possible custody battle begins, I’m letting go of all hurt and anger, because we have a little boy to raise – although 2,000 miles apart – together.

A couple of days ago, a 9 year old little girl came up missing… In recent years, I’ve noticed a drastic increase in missing persons  cases that are children… and way too many stories about children coming up dead. My oldest child is nine years old… she will be 10 in February. I look at her and I cannot imagine how it must feel for a parent to realize their child has gone missing… Just thinking about gives my heart a feeling of terror. There is no nightmare comparable to that reality… to face the fact that we are living in a world full of rapists and murderers… a world full of individuals who are sick and twisted and who prey on the innocent and defenseless members of our society – they take advantage of the weaknesses in the elderly and the young.

It’s a haunting thought… how can a child fall victim to such a heinous crime?

Then… the little girl’s ‘body’ is found – and it is not a middle aged, mentally challenged, psychotic man with prior child-related offenses on his record that we’re glaring down at looking for answers; no, there is a 15 year old child in the hotseat who is apparently responsible for the death of this little girl. So now, not only do we have to be wary of pathetic pedophiles; not only are demented adult sickos after our children, but now – now, we must protect our children from CHILDREN as well, and not just the bully kind that wants a buck at lunch every day.

My mind takes me back to a time I once heard of where villages were involved in raising – and protecting – children. During that time, children could play in the street, walk to town, stay outside from dawn to dusk riding bikes and being mischievous – and there was no question of whether or not they would make it home at night. Now, we barely know our neighbors and we’re programmed to get offended if we receive any type of ‘bad’ report from someone else about our children. We don’t want people in our business… Today, we’re doing good if we manage to wave to the people on our block a couple of times a week. How many of your neighbors can you call by name {without them wondering if you’ve been pilfering through their mail to get their information}?

I personally believe that we have traded our safety for privacy at a very precious price. We’ve sacrificed the security of the village and now, we’re losing our children – in more ways than one.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As such, you may see a plethora of pink from pinned-on ribbons to new webpage graphics to ties and other attire… all of this is in attempts to honor those who have battled with breast cancer as well as to raise public awareness of the issue. While October is the power-promo month, the NBCAM website is available every day of the year to provide information and references to those interested in learning more about the fight against breast cancer – and, according to the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month website, the fight to encourage the “practice of regular self-breast exams to identify any changes, scheduling regular visits and annual mammograms, adhering to prescribed treatment, and knowing the facts about the recurrence” of breast cancer.

This month, in respect of Breast Cancer Awareness, Colloquy Moms is featuring our readers – have you or has someone you love fought this battle? Send your story to team@colloquymoms.com along with a short bio, a link to your blog (if applicable), and a photograph (if available). Submissions will be accepted through October 25th as celebration of the NBCAM’s 25 years of awareness, education, and empowerment. All acceptable submissions will be featured between October 17 and October 31st! Our purpose is to inspire, to inform, and to enlighten others about the seriousness of breast cancer and the necessity of getting involved in the fight to continue to move forward in research and public awareness.

Spread the word – save a life!