I don’t know if it’s just me, but as the number of my ‘friends’ on Facebook has grown, the less comfortable I’ve become about doing anything on the platform. I haven’t written a ‘note’ all summer and last night I started to think about why. 

I tell myself that I’ve been busy and that I’ve been adjusting to my new job … melding my personal and professional personas. But I’m not sure it’s that simple. 

Since January, people from all corners of my life (and the globe) have trickled in to my online existence. I joined Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends while I was away. Some people swore against it as I became a resolute fan. I welcomed the social experiment that would surely upset the balance of communication forever and I wanted to know the outcome of it: good or ill. 

It’s been exciting to hear from people I haven’t seen in years and to reconnect with people through photos and stories and video. But to try to conceive of them all together is next to impossible. It’s fine if someone else in my network puts up a photo of me in funny glasses, but to create and share something myself is becoming a daunting idea. And I’m sort of dauntless. 

I don’t mind when worlds collide a little bit. But two worlds at a time are usually enough. As Joscelyn said the other day, “You’re an open book.”

Is that a bad thing?