Musings by OZ

Dear Face Book,

I’m so sorry but we need some time apart, its just not working out anymore. Don’t worry it’s not you it’s me. We have grown apart over the years and its time for me to step away and live my life without you. I know you have been there when I needed you but I just don’t need you in my life anymore. But don’t worry, you have lots of other friends and I suspect you will be just fine without me in your life. 

Best Regards,

Steve Oz

P.S. As a final show of gratitude I will share with you this photo of a delicious bowl of soup that you just reminded me that I enjoyed 3 months ago.

 

 Three years ago when I was first diagnosed with stage 4 Lymphoma I made the decision to share my story on Face Book. I wanted to share with my friends what was going on but I didn’t want to repeat  myself again and again so I decided that it would be easier to share my journey through social media. The show of support that I received not only from those that know me but also from complete strangers was amazing. It was a complete surprise to me how much strength I got from the love and support that was sent to me via Face Book. I was hesitant sharing my journey at first but I quickly became a believer in the positivity and connectedness that can be found in social media.  

I was in remission after six months of chemo but shortly after learning this I found out that I also had thyroid cancer. I decided to also share the journey on social media with this second disease and still I found strength from the FaceBook community. 

Unfortunately I have relapsed, the Lymphoma has returned and I have another fight ahead of me. I have decided that this time around I will not be sharing this journey on FaceBook.

 I will be stepping away from Face Book for a while. This actually feels a bit strange,  I have been on FB for over a decade now and have spent more time than I would care to even admit scrolling the feed. A decade of scrolling with my thumb on the screen of my phone, joining groups and offering likes and hearts, GIF’s and MEME’s, sharing photos of the moments in my life that I think others may want to see, sharing photos of last nights dinner. But alas, no more, you will now have to guess what culinary treat I indulged in last night.

No more will I push my pictures of meat on my vegetarian friends or my photos of salads, or hummus on my carnivorous friends.

These days instead of actually  traveling and seeing the world we sit in front of our computers or on our phones living our lives through the eyes of others. Instead of enjoying a concert, enjoying the moment, we hold up our phones, to the consternation of those behind us, and record the concert so we can quickly post it online, look at me, I bet you wish you were here!

We no longer live in the moment as we once did. Maybe that’s not correct, maybe it’s that “the moment” has changed, the value of a moment has been diluted. Our moments are no longer our moments, they are opportunities to share with the world, look what I did!

Back in the day I had a camera, an actual camera that I would load up with a roll of 110 film.  Depending on the film you would have 12 to 36 opportunities to take a pic or capture a moment. I valued each and every one of those and was very careful which moment I chose to capture. When I reached the end of a roll I would take it to be developed not knowing how my photos would turn out. There was a feeling of magical anticipation waiting to see the result of those carefully chosen moments in time. Often the film would be returned and half of the photos were undeveloped, but the ones that were developed were precious, a moment in time captured! Now we take photos of anything and everything, we always have a camera available. It’s too easy, the photograph has lost its magic.

FB is not a real portrayal of our lives, we share with our friends what we think they want to see. We share things that will hopefully portray us in a way that we want others to see us. We share the good times, the fun experiences but it’s just a facade, a subterfuge, a sneaky way of showing the world that we are doing wonderful, a barometer of our success and happiness.

The reality is that we all have issues, we all have problems and challenges, we all have road blocks and shit that gets us down. I have shared my journey with cancer but we each have a form of cancer in our lives, it may not be the big C but we all have corrosive elements in our life, we all have battles to fight. Most of the stories that I have posted this year have been about cancer but I now think this is selfish of me to share such things without bing asked.  Most of the photos that I have shared are pictures of me and Ginny smiling like we don’t have a care in the world. These photos are lies, I mean we may be smiling and having fun at the time but the reality is that the smiles are easily given to the camera to show everything is ok, but all is not ok. I am sick, much sicker than I care to admit.

The fact is that I am just now grasping the reality that I have a disease that has taken the lives of people stronger than myself. I am a fighter, I am and continue to be strong and I will continue to do everything I can to fight for my life, you just won’t be reading about it on FaceBook any more.

uck cancer

I am easy enough to find if anyone would care to get in touch with me, you can IM me or what’s app me, you can email me or google me. You can even write me a letter…..with a pen on paper and I will write back.  I am here, but I will no longer be there. Good bye Face Book, its been a good ride.

I will continue to write my stories for my BLOG so if anyone is truly interested in what I have to say you can always go to www.OZELTON.com.