Anyway, I digress.

I was watching this movie, and at the end, Steve’s character cuts off his son’s 8th grade graduation speech to talk about soul mates, and how he met his when he was 15 (his soon to be ex-wife, though they made it seem like reconciliation was possible by the end of the movie). He said something like, “I’ve loved her every minute of every day for the last 25 years. I even loved her when I hated her.”

So you can probably guess that by the end of the movie, I was crying, well, because I cry at the end of most happy ending chick flicks. But I don’t think it was for the usual reasons. I used to cry at the end of chick flicks because I wanted to experience the endings. Isn’t that the cheesiest thing ever? Like, do you remember the Lizzie McGuire Movie? I wanted to get up on stage and sing my heart out at the end in front of loads of people and then kiss Gordo. How about What a Girl Wants? I wanted to find my prince charming in London.

Ah well. Let’s snap back to reality here.

Soul mates. I thought I met mine when I was 15. He came in the form of a tall, slightly chubby blonde dude from New Zealand (who also grew up in Sydney, AU, which is pretty damn cool). We were together for ages, but by the time I got out of high school, we were going in opposite directions. Thinking we could make it work, we were stupid and got married. I was 19, and he was 23. Five months later, it was splitsville for us. Yeah, we had some rough times, but we have a friendly acquaintance-like thing going on these days.

Shortly after that, I thought I met my soul mate in a bowling alley. He came in the form of a tall dark-haired quiet dude with some major family baggage (I seem to attract those). He’s what I like to call “The Whirlwind”, mainly because we got together, got married a few months later, and then separated a year later. Somewhere during that time, I got to know one of his friends on a more personal level, and hell, I thought maybe he was my soulmate too, but he never wanted to ruin our friendship.

Finally, my soul mate came in the form of a tall, sarcastic smart ass from Philadelphia, who lives and breathes (not literally) cheesesteaks and technology. Kind of a crazy combination eh? Well, regardless of that, we did things right. We started dating, then we moved in together a few months later. Then a year later he proposed, and then a couple months later, we got married. And almost three years later, we are still married. And I still love him as much as the day he called me up drunk from a karaoke bar to serenade me with “The Way You Look Tonight.”

I’ve loved him every minute of every day, even when I hate him. Not that that’s an often occurrence, because it’s not. We have our fleeting moments of typical relationship crap (but then again, who doesn’t?), and we get over it. Because that’s what soul mates do. We fight and we get over it.

Shortly after we started dating.

I look at my parents, who are coming up on their 40th wedding anniversary, and I often wonder how they made it that far. And then when I figure it out, I realize how much Mr. Fox and I are like my parents. If soul mates truly exist, then my parents are the epitome of soul mates.

They met on a cruise ship, and it was all downhill (in the best possible way) from there.

my parents cutting their wedding cake

Years and years later, Mr. Fox and I met on Myspace (whoa, Myspace?!), and it was all downhill from there.

Love is crazy and stupid. But that’s what makes it love.

crazy stupid love hate steve carell movie soul mate

This post, love to hate to love, was written by phillynikongal, and originally posted on esther fox [DOT] com. If you're reading this on a site other than esther fox [DOT] com, it has been taken and used without permission.

Yesterday I quit.

(oh by the way, sorry for the two-month absence, but I’ve been preoccupied with writer’s block)

So yeah, I deactivated my Facebook account yesterday. As you can see, I’ve been on there for nearly six years. Six years?! Holy whoa. Let’s see, that’s two marriages, a handful of failed relationships, busted friendships, and other life things that I can easily find on my Facebook timeline (that honestly shouldn’t have been there in the first place).

You might find yourself wondering why. Haha, well, I guess I am finding myself asking the same question. Truthfully, there’s no real right or wrong answer to that question. My main motivation, however, is that I was tired of it. Tired of the drama. Tired of seeing the same kind of posts over and over again. Tired of Zuckerberg and his penchant for changing things every chance he gets.

My very first public wall post.

Over time, I began to notice certain things. Like if I was particularly annoying one day (ie, posting various memes), I would stop hearing from certain people that used to comment often on my posts. It made me very paranoid, that I didn’t know if people were unsubscribing from my updates, and that was beginning to bother me. There’s no reason to let it bother me, yet I was letting it get to me. This became apparent when I went to post about leaving, and all of about four people commented on it. I then made the mistake of sending out a mass message, which people left without replying. So then I was left thinking, well, if you really wanted to keep in contact with me, you would have replied to the message, or sent me a reply separately.

Oh well. There is one thing I can definitely say, and that is that I never ONCE gave into Farmville, or any other iteration of the “ville” games. I only ever got sucked into Sims Social and Words with Friends. And I don’t play them anymore.

The point is, I’m done. The majority of people that I interacted with on Facebook, are able to converse with me outside of Facebook. Sure, it was a primary mode of communication for me and a lot of my friends. Yeah, I may lose out of knowing the up to date goings on of some of them. But you know what? A lot of those people only spoke to me when it was time to write on my wall for my birthday. That’s all fine and good, but what’s the point?

Of course, it took me a while to actually *leave*. Mr. Fox informed me that I was able to download an archive of all my Facebook data, which included all of my photos and wall posts (though I’ve found that it only went as far back as my birthday, which annoyed me). But, the upside to that is being able to have all of my photo files organized by the albums. That made me happy.

It’s really easy to download an archive of your data. First, you want to be signed in, obviously. Go to your Account Settings.

Click on the link that says Download a copy of your Facebook data. From there, it will ask you for your password and then send you an email when your archive is ready to be downloaded.

Once you receive the email to download, you’ll be asked for your password again, and you will also be given the option to download an expanded archive in addition to the basic archive. The basic archive includes an HTML doc of your messages, wall posts, photos, videos, as well as all of your photo and video files. The expanded archive contains all of your personal information. I went ahead and downloaded both the basic and the expanded.

So, Facebook, I wasted almost 6 years of my life on you. And I couldn’t be happier to be rid of you. It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I may have only deactivated you, but I am going to wait about 3 months before I delete you entirely.

If you want other means to contact me, you can first and foremost send me an email. I always reply to those. I am also on Google+, which is really nice because not many people are on it yet (also a drawback, so if you’re not on there, you should be!). Finally, I am on twitter, as @estherfoxDOTcom, so if you’re not already following me, you should. Here’s some links to some other profiles/sites I am on:

about.me
Instagram
Pinterest (begrudgingly, even though I haven’t been on there in months, I still have the account)
Foursquare

leaving facebook goodbye social media zuckerberg sucks

This post, so long facebook, was written by phillynikongal, and originally posted on esther fox [DOT] com. If you're reading this on a site other than esther fox [DOT] com, it has been taken and used without permission.

Wow, it’s hard to believe that December has gone by so fast! Two more days of #reverb11 et al, and it seems like it just started yesterday.

Today’s #reverb11/#resound11 prompt comes from Jaemie over at #resound11:

Letting go can be hard. We get comfortable in our current situation. We have a tendency to repeat the same behaviors and patterns even when we know they are not in our best interest. Sometimes we hold on to relationships, dreams, feelings, or stuff just because we can’t let go.

But letting go sometimes is what we need to do.

What did you let go of in 2011? What was the experience like? How is your life different today? Do you ever regret it?

If not, is there something that you need to let go of in 2012? What scares you about that possibility? What situation do you need to create for that to happen?

Hmm…

The majority of the last three and a half years, I would like to erase from my memory. One of my biggest mistakes in life (aside from my previous marriages) was moving back to Indiana.

Granted, there were a few good things that came out of being here. One, I wouldn’t have met and married Mr. Fox (although we’re convinced that we would have been brought together even if I didn’t come here, as we discovered we may have crossed paths before), and I wouldn’t have reconnected with an old friend from high school.

Unfortunately though, my time here in Indy has been filled with as much upset, if not more, than my time spent in Arizona. Which, previously, had been my other biggest mistake. I’ve been let down more times than I can count. I’ve been chewed up by people close to me that had no right to do so. I’ve lost friends over the stupidest things (though I suppose they were never friends to begin with). I’ve had my share of unsavory people enter and exit my life. I’ve put up with a bunch of crap.

A lot of my Indiana friends give me crap about my dislike for being here. Well, yeah, I hate it. I’m sorry if that offends people, especially those who have been there all their life. I am most definitely *not* a Hoosier. I may have lived here for a few years, but I absolutely don’t belong here.

I am Jersey born and Philly phlavored. And I can’t WAIT to let Indiana go. It shall be a painless break up.

reverb11 resound11 day twenty-nine let go indiana moving

This post, #reverb11 and #resound11 day twenty nine – let go, was written by phillynikongal, and originally posted on esther fox [DOT] com. If you're reading this on a site other than esther fox [DOT] com, it has been taken and used without permission.