Measuring up: facebook and the uprise of my post-high school insecurities

Ok so maybe I'm the last twenty-six year old to register for facebook. Probably not, but I just caught up with the rest of my class and joined the conformity movement that is this new social networking era. When I realized that even some of my former coworkers old enough to be my mom were slapping comments on walls and poking their friends, I made a mental note that I've had my head head stuck in the ground far too long.

Amazing, I thought, that I can really snoop and silently check in the lives of former classmates, some of which I admit I could go without seeing for another ten years. It's great for other things too, like catching up with those true friends you did manage to find and for that reason it's highly addictive. However, it's uncanny that I'm able to follow the road maps of these people's lives. I tally up the number of grad students, those who are pursuing their PHD or their JD and I am left feeling pissed that there are no prerequisites or fancy abbreviations at the end of my name for the sake of my profession: stay at home mom.

Feeling I fell short of my own expectations was one thing, but it was quite another to feel it was like high school all over again to have to "ask" to be one's friend with the tiny voice whispering "What if they IGNORE me?!" Embarrassment. Shame even! It conjures too many old emotions of passing through those old, deteriorating, cafeteria-spaghetti-smelling hallways not knowing if the person I smile or wave at will do the old "turn, and look the other way" while I point my face straight at the floor nearly toppling into the locker bank. Not that I haven't let those old feelings die.

But doesn't it perpetuate that stereotypical high school dance? The messy tango involving you vs. the rest of the school. I mean, by the end of high school I was fully prepared to leave that dance behind and not look back, and I feel I walked to my own beat and didn't conform to very much [with the exception of FB]. I was fairly well received, but don't think I still didn't care what the quote-en-quote popular crowd thought of me. I did. I just succeeded at fooling most people.

I would like to think it is somewhere in our DNA to strive for acceptance. I guess I have ceased to remember that for a few years since my biggest critics now are not yet old enough to turn their noses up at me or baulk their opinions in retaliation. Not that they don't have the kahunas to do it, they've just got a few years [thank God] until they reach the alien stage of adolescence.

It's this ongoing feeling that I have, one that is fleeting but always causes me to question if I'm doing the most with my life. If I'm making my kids proud or does my stepdaughter quietly utter that her stepmom is "just" a mom with nothing more to her resume. Will I return to work when my boys are elementary school bound, or if I hack a part time job in lieu having latch key kids will they too feel embarrassed their mom doesn't "do" much? Perhaps, instead, it is the question most in my mind: am I measuring up?

My husband, my wise wise husband, often points out to me the handful of his colleagues who would quit teaching in a heartbeat if their family could afford the sacrifice to stay home with their kids. Don't get me wrong. I KNOW that staying home is something I will never regret.

Moments I spend negotiating with Mason that he may not run around "naaaaay-ke" in his diaper all morning, or telling Peyton again that shoving the square lego in his iddy-bitty mouth will always result in a discomforting feeling of it being lodged among his teeth. Seriously! My boys bring humor into what would be an otherwise dull day, and I have the pleasure if not the pride of being able to permanently write about them in a corner of cyberspace for all three of my readers to enjoy; it's awesome! But does that make me successful? No. Does it have to? I suppose not.

And I certainly don't want my kids to look back at my writings only to think their mama is a martyr. Because there is nothing I love more than my current passion of being a mom. It is many many things and the hardest thing and yet the most important thing I'll ever do. But regretting to do this job on the home front 24/7 is not on my list of greatest disappointments, but instead one of my best decisions I've made.

Touché, facebook. Touché.