Timeline?

Oh Facebook.

This new timeline thing is not my favorite. I'm the first person to put things in chronological order (my CDs in chronology according to date of composition, my books in order of when they were written, my clothes in order of purchase date...) but I can't get behind facebook's chronological ordering of my life.

Especially since other people can post things to my timeline.

I'm still sorting this thing out. But I got an inkling of it when someone posted something a few months ago about a class we had taken together at a college that I didn't want to acknowledge. Specifically, I did not want to acknowledge taking that course at that college. Its a fine school and all, it served its purpose, but the course itself was purely for scholarship purposes and I would rather not advertise that I had been there. At least, not on facebook.

I just ignored that little message though. You know the message facebook sends about how so-and-so has indicated that you were in such-and-such a place, and would you please confirm? I ignored it and it went away.

But then tonight someone else did something similar that sent me into a tiny panic.
They listed me as having attended my high school.

Now to be sure, I listed my own high school and graduating year on facebook. But this person included me in some sort of group-timeline-"yearbook" thing that not only announces to the world my highschool experience, it includes me in some sort of "schoolfeed" that let's me participate in the high school experience all over again.

No thank you.

Some things are just left well enough alone.

To say high school was traumatizing would be an understatement. In my program we are learning about "exposure therapy" for PTSD patients. Its where you allow them to expereince the trauma repeatedly until they accept the emotions and learn to cope with the physiologial responses from life threatening situations. I won't do it. I won't go there. War vetrans relive battles, but I won't go back to high school.

Not only am I unprepared to address the high school experience, I'm unwilling to even discuss or consider it.

I see no reason to. My life is full of wonderful healthy relationships that are as far away from high school as Ghana is from hosting the winter olympics. And those wonderful healthy relationships are mixed in with a few old high school friends in my facebook lists. But frankly, there is no way I am inviting anyone into that circle who I haven't carefully selected.

I'm OK with blank spots on my timeline.

So when I saw this post inviting me to participate in a giant virtual high school re-play, I panicked. I wondered why facebook has to have just the "like" button. Why isn't there a "dislike" button? Why isn't there a "please don't remind me" button? Why isn't there an "i'd much prefer that this portion of my life never happened" button?

When I went to investigate the removal of the high school yearbook from my timeline, I discovered that it was an app sort of thing. The screen popped up that said "schoolfeed would like to allow Warroad High School Yearbook to access your photos, friend lists, timelines, and information" and then underneath there were two buttons. "Allow" and "Don't Allow".

I have to admit. It was therapeutic to hit "don't allow".

It was like I got to say "no" to the high school experience in a way that I hadn't been allowed before. No. You can't have the good things in my life. No you can't mock me, bully me, or break me down. No you can't question who I am and what I am choosing. No. You can't be a part of the things I am building in spite of all the damage you did. I don't allow it. I don't allow the negative in here anymore. I don't allow the doubts and fears to tear me apart. I don't allow you in to the life I have.

Sometimes avoidance is adaptive in that it is a behavior we adopt because the behavior has protective qualities. Sometimes the adaptive avoidance leads to dysfunction in other parts of life. But sometimes, adaptive avoidance is just fine. I don't need to relive high school in order to move on. I'm doing just fine without it. And I'm kind of proud of the way hitting "don't allow" was more than just the elimination of a junk app. It is the way I've learned to live my life. Don't allow. You want to play games, pretend like there have been offenses committed, or create unneccesary drama? I'm hitting the "Don't allow" button. Manipulations? Don't allow. But if you would like to invite honesty, repair relationships, and have conversations that mean something, I'll "Allow". Questions and concerns? Allow. Whining and anger? Don't allow. Action and emotion? Allow. Judgement and cruelty? Don't allow.

I'm not sure that personal growth is chronological. There is a lot of back and forth. Sometimes we lose ground, sometimes we have to backtrack to pick up pieces. Some people come to a complete halt. I'd like to believe that we are all improving in the long run, but the reality is, we all have chunks we'd like to forget, either because we were worse than we wanted to be or because we somehow came to a screeching stop, or because the actions of others put us in an entirely different place. Whatever the reason, I'd like facebook to come up with a different sort of "line" that's not a timeline. Maybe a happiness line. Something that documents our favorite moments regardless of when they occurred. Or maybe a "best behavior" line, that documents the things we have done that we are most proud of, that we most want the world to know about. Or maybe a "define me" line, that allows us to share the things that make us individuals. After all, the whole "social networking" scene is about self-marketing.

And the nice thing is, we could use such a perspective to ask ourselves how right now fits. Does "right now" make my happiness line, my best behavior line, or my define me line? Because if it doesn't, I need to make different choices about what I allow and what I don't allow.