Talking in the third person.

This post is a bit rambling and I appologize if it makes no sense. I was very tired when I wrote it and just needed to get some thoughts out of my head. Hopefully, my next post will make more sense!

Although I have only been a member of the facebook family for a few short months, I will admit that I tend to spend a lot of time facebooking. I even switched phone carriers and got myself a new phone so that I can take facebook with me where ever I go. Some might even say I am addicted to facebook, and I would be hard pressed to prove them wrong. My children sigh, and my husband just rolls his eyes. What is it that has so captured my interest that I have a hard time walking away?



One of the things about facebook that I found a bit confusing and actually down right strange in my early days was the way we talk in the third person. Cheryl is tired. Cheryl has had a rough day. Cheryl wants to escape.



Tonight, as I was frantically searching for my medicine, I had a flash of wisdom. (No idea what the connection between the two is.) Talking in the third person allows me to detach from a tough situation. If I talk about Cheryl, I am distancing myself from what ever it is that I am trying to deal with. I am not the one crying because I am tired and need to find that silly bottle before I can go to sleep. That is Cheryl's problem. It is not my children who are constantly bickering or arguing with their dad. Those are Cheryl's children.



From the beginning, I was drawn to facebook as an outlet. It gave me a safe place to vent. I could take out my frustrations at the keyboard, instead of on my kids. I could laugh at the absurdity of a situation that would normally have me flustered.



Facebook allowed this normally shy and reserved person to open up and let people into my life. I learned things about people I see everyday, but never really got to know. As I learned about those people and they learned about me, acquaintances became friends. Walls have fallen down as I have poured out my heart on rough days, and rather than being scorned, people have reached out to me and encouraged me.



It was from my phone in the ER last week that I put out the distress call, using facebook. By the end of the day, there were people all over the country praying for Simon and holding our family up in prayer. As the day unfolded, my cryptic postings became frantic pleas. Third person musings could not detach me from the horror I was facing, but they were able to notify others of what was happening.



Simon woke up grumpy this morning. What a joy that was for me! He had the energy to be a crab! After he had eaten, his mood greatly improved. I was able to take advantage of the reprieve and took the day off, so to speak. (In other words, I hung out at the school.) Simon stayed home with his dad.



When I got home, it was a third person kind of night. I almost turned around and walked back out the door. Simon was in a rage, because someone had finished off the salad. Warren, 17, and Beau, 5, were fighting over whether or not the fan should be on. Bob and grandma were both ready to be done with the kids, and each other. I was frantically looking for a rock to hide under or a hole to crawl into! In other words, our family was back to normal. In the midst of it all, I sure wasn't happy, but looking at it from the 3rd person point of view, there was relief.



Today was probably as close to normal as our lives are going to be for at least the next few months. I have made arrangements for the other children for tomorrow, as Simon has his pre-therapy appointment. He will recieve an IV antibiotic. The process should take about 1.5 hours. We all have a bacteria that lives in our lungs. In people with supressed immune systems, this bacteria can go haywire, becoming overgrown and causing severe pnemonia. This is often the cause of death in people with AIDS. The antibiotic Simon will recieve specifically targets that bacteria.