I’ll admit it took me many years to come around to Facebook.

Friends and relatives proclaimed it was the only way to keep tabs on what their children and grandchildren were up to. But that seemed a bit sneaky to my mind. Like slipping a “wire” into your daughter’s hair scrunchie before she went out on a date. Or consistently checking the odometer mileage after your son borrowed the family car. I personally trusted my children and I hope I earned it. Not for me, the life of a parental spy.

“It’s the way to follow what the relatives in Norway are doing,” I would hear. “Phoning cross country is too expensive (true). “Nobody writes letters anymore” (sad, and pretty much true). “I don’t bother to check my email for weeks (said a child). If you don’t text me (no thank you), the best way to keep up is to FB.”

Okay. That does it.

I saw the movie and I thought the guy was a bit of a jerk. He started this whole endeavor for spite after his girlfriend dumped him for being too self-absorbed. He initially structured the system to be used as a rating system of women students as to their relative attractiveness. Ugh. Need I say more? And in the process he was said to have stolen the idea from two brothers who consequently sued him.

I had to ask myself – is this actually a process in which I want to lend my name and family pictures and share my beloved interests and daily pursuits? Should I be one of millions helping this jerk become a millionaire?  Certainly there must be some other way we can “keep in touch?”

But last September I succumbed, feeling sappy and missing our children and grandchildren across the miles. It’s a long, long way from Minnesota to California. (And May to December.)

Then, strangely enough, I found it was cool to suddenly have 37 “friends.” I was amazed at the hi-jinks they were up to. I felt like I had sequestered a wire in a scrunchie and monitored their odometer. And not just our children. The children of cousins and their lives came alive. Old friends surfaced and were reborn to me. I suddenly knew where our family was and what they were doing. I was hooked.

On Christmas my daughter Noelle came to visit. And one day while she was here, she checked her email and her FB account on my computer. But then, they were gone, my 37 friends. Lost in cyberspace. Hanging out and posting their fun and frolics elsewhere but not to me.

Non-geeks that we are, we followed the guidelines and help suggestions to no avail. But the truth was that by initially logging onto Noelle’s account, mine was now gone and I began to suffer from serious Facebook withdrawal pangs.

What were they doing, my friends?

How must I fill this void?

Am I now exiled from the family?

Given that it is now the only way to be in touch, I felt frantic and forsaken.

Finally, nothing to be done but to re-signup. And that is exactly what I did a few days ago. But I forgot, I must admit, who actually ARE my friends? Hello! If you have “friend-ed” me in the past, will you please now sign up? I’m here! Are you there?

So now I am on a new Facebook account with 15 friends – where are the rest of you? I know you’re having fun and hi-jinks. Please click on me. Oh dear.

Today, however, I discovered the most important reason to sign up for Facebook.

Scrolling through, I noticed that our grandson listed his two New Years Resolutions –

“To fall in love.”

“To use my talents to help others.”

Thank you Sam. You just gave me the best and dearest reason to be on Facebook.