Get my shit together

OK – I don’t like to swear while writing but I cannot find another equivalent for the expression “get my shit together.”  It just doesn’t have the same meaning  for me to say “I have to get myself mentally organized.”  Here I sit on a Saturday morning, having gotten hot yoga in, an hours worth of yard work done, and now, a cup of coffee and ready to begin my “connections” with the world –  touching base with my girlfriends via text, checking work emails, writing this blog post, checking Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Stumbling, of course!  I’m getting it together baby!

Why is this relevant to being a “fifty something”?  What makes me break out in a sweat and shoot my stress level through the roof if I don’t keep up with all of this readily available communication?  I think  it’s because my generation, as in generations prior, lost touch with friends from the past simply due to geography and the wearing away of time and to suddenly have a way to be instantly connected to high school and college friends, and basically the world, is exciting.  Studies show that approximately 28 million people over the age of 45, are using Facebook, approximately 39% of their users – that explains a lot right there.

This instant ability to connect has the younger generation wondering how we communicated “back in the day”.  My daughter recently asked me, how did we connect with friends  when we went out for the night?  How did we pull together a social evening without Facebook, Twitter and texting?  I simply answered that we called everyone up, picked a place to meet, and stood guard at the meeting place until everyone showed up.  The “be there or be  square” concept.  It worked pretty well.  I like to think it made us all the more accountable.

Accountability is my middle name, so I feel a sense of having to be accountable with all the pieces of my life that are floating out on the internet in this day and age (FB, Twitter, etc..)  Odd as it may sound, but I feel like I have to keep in touch.  The capability is there,  I am a social person, so it all makes sense that I take a morning or sometimes a whole day to “get my shit together” – putting all the pieces of my social connectiveness together to therefore feel more complete.  As I press “publish” on this post – I feel a sense of relief.  I can cross “blog today” off my list.  Now that just leaves me with…..