I’d been trying to get a hold of my little brother for weeks–and not just to chew him out for the birthday celebration that was (in my humble opinion) ill-advised. I was trying to get ahold of him because I hadn’t talked to him for a while and because I missed him.
So when I saw on Facebook that his relationship status had changed to “In a Relationship”, I was a bit disappointed.
And when he finally called a week later to ask if there were any boys around for him to beat up (Try as I might to make them understand, none of my brothers seem to have gotten it through their heads that at some point they might not want to be repelling all of their sisters’ potential suitors!), I chastised him for not calling me earlier.
He hemmed and hawed, talked about the distance between here and California, so on and so forth.
I told him I understood–and didn’t expect we’d stay as connected as when we were both in Lincoln. “But just keep me updated,” I requested.
In the past few days, he’s been faithful to keep me updated, little pings in my text message mailbox at all hours:
“Hey I’m eating pizza”
“At chow hall bout to go to church”
“Oh BTW I went to chow a while back”
“Just got done with field day………Prolly gonna go to sleep in like an hour…. :)”
I’ve been texting him back. Smiley faces. “Like”. The occasional personal update:
“On my way back from Grand Island. It’s really starting to feel like Fall, what with the wind blowing cold and the trees about half turned.”
It’s silly stuff, overwhelmingly mundane.
The sort of stuff I see on Facebook every day.
But these status updates aren’t the impersonal blobs on Facebook. These are opportunities to interact with and enjoy my brother.
I wouldn’t trade them for a dozen Facebooks.
Interesting. I agree that it’s not necessarily the exciting content of a status update, but the personalness of it, the matters.
I hear you there.