who are you?

did you ever have a pen pal when you were a kid? i'm talking about an honest to goodness pen pal. i'm talking pencils and lined notebook paper. pre-erasable ball point pen even. you remember that time? we were all still reeling from the invention of velcro sneakers, and cool ranch doritos were just a happy, blurry figment of our imaginations. i had a pen pal. her name was carolina and she lived in bogotá. she was the daughter of my aunt's then boyfriend, and we were nearly the same age, so it followed that we should be pen pals. i remember filling pages and pages of hello kitty notepad paper with really important information to tell her. and then waiting. oh the waiting. so much agony. after i sent a letter, not a day would go by that i didn't think about carolina getting my letter. what she would think about all my important information, and better yet, what important information did she have to tell me?? then there was always that day. the one when i kicked my way down the driveway, walking home from school, slouched into the kitchen to find an envelope sitting there for me. bam! i'd grab it, and tear it open as i was racing up the stairs to my room, fling myself onto my bed, and read like a blind man given sight. what a feeling. but where am i going with all this? i'll tell you. recently i read a really interesting essay on social media detox that my friend shari pointed me to. even more interesting, and ironic is that we then entered into a discussion of the article on twitter. i guess my point is this. i don't know how to be anyone else than myself, especially online. don't get me wrong i have a need for privacy. this is no reality tv show over here at huffmania. i have my moments. i get cranky like everyone else, we have lots of stress like everyone else. and guess what? i even have lots of ugly pictures. shocking, right? it's true. the key is healthy boundaries. boundaries about what you do and do not share online. boundaries on how much time you spend in your online world and your real world. and if you are lucky, having the opportunity to mix those two worlds a bit. i've had the sincere and great pleasure of meeting many of my online friends in person. they are flesh and blood people. and they are themselves. to me it's like having a pen pal without all the space of waiting. yes. i know space is a good thing. and yes, i think letters are wonderful. but our life moves at a faster pace these days. pulling yourself out now and then is good. but i also think being able to move with the flow is good too. if i didn't, i would have missed out on having some really wonderful people in my life. i would have sat alone on easter sunday in some crummy hotel room. instead i spent the whole day with a wonderful family. sure, i'd never met tracy before. but we had already exchanged lots of really important information. and i knew her. better yet, i know myself. and what i am comfortable with. i'm not naive. i know there are lots and lots of strange people and things on the internet. and i know you can get thrown a curve ball. but for the most part, my online community, my social media has been so very positive that i couldn't give it up. i'm not all that interested in expanding it. it's at a good place, a good size and takes up an amount of time that i am ok with. it works for me. and i know me pretty well. of course now i'm wondering if i can find carolina on facebook...