A Break from the Craziness

Yesterday a group of us in my department at work spent the morning volunteering at the Empty Stocking Fund. In case you don’t know what that is, it is a place where people can go to pick out Christmas presents for their kids – I believe they are referred there by DFACS. Think of it as like a food bank, but instead of giving out free food, they give out free Christmas presents for kids. For most of the morning, I was pushing shopping carts through their warehouse picking the items that the various families had selected. But for about the last hour or so I was moved to the area where the families have the opportunity to look at the different items (they had them grouped by age & gender) and choose which ones they wanted. Most of the people seemed thankful (with a few exceptions – I know the stuff to pick from maybe wasn’t the best choices, but it’s free, and it may be the only presents your child will have on Christmas). Anyway, this one woman came up when I called her number, and I saw on her order form that she had a baby girl. So I asked about the baby, and she told me that she will be 9 months old on Christmas. She went on to tell me that this baby is very special, because she had lost 7 babies before her, so she was truly her miracle baby. That made my heart melt. I mean, really, all babies are miracle babies when you think about it, but I cannot even imagine losing 7 babies before you finally have one that you can keep and take home and watch grow. I know that this mother was truly thankful for anything she could give to her little miracle baby.

And now, I need some advice. I have a “facebook friend” who I’m not really even friends with, but you know, you get all these “facebook friends” that are people you know…Anyway, I have started referring to her as Debbie Downer because every time I go on facebook, she has updated her status to something really sad or depressing or morbid. Frankly, it brings me down – I cannot ever remember her having a status that was positive in any way. She is always whining about one thing or another from her favorite football team to a headache to the rain, whatever. The other night her status said something about that she “really hates her depression” – YIKES! I mean, it’s not that I cannot have sympathy for someone dealing with depression, but do you really need to broadcast it for everyone on facebook to know? I have thought about “un-friending” her (just because all of her negativity is starting to bug me), but from what I understand, facebook notifies the person you are un-friending to let them know that you have un-friended them. I am wondering how I would feel if I got a message that someone had un-friended me? I’d like to think that if it was someone I was never really “real” friends with that I wouldn’t care. But then I wonder if it makes a difference if she is truly depressed? Would that make her feel worse? I realize I can just not look at her page (which I don’t), but I’ll continue to see her status updates if I keep her as a friend. I understand people like to vent sometimes (I’ve done it too) but she is the only one who ONLY posts negative stuff. Anyone got any advice for me???