People are giving me heat for stepping away from Facebook.
Let me make this plain: everything is fine in the Divorced Dad District. Nobody needs to send in a rescue squad. I didn’t leave because I’m broken. I left because I could feel myself slipping into the same trap I complain about in my own home.
I would have the phone in my hand checking Facebook like a reflex. Couldn’t go ten minutes without scrolling. Hard to bark at Hazel about TikTok or Fritz stacking fake blocks on MindCraft when I’m doing the adult version of the same thing. If you are going to set rules, you’d better follow a few yourself. Otherwise, you are just the guy who talks and doesn’t do.
So I hit delete.
Not the account.
Just the app on my phone.
I needed a little distance. A winter mode. A chance to tighten the bolts and get quiet for a while. Not everything needs to be screamed out loud like we once did on the trading floor.
I’ll tell you something that surprised me: once I said I was stepping back, people came out of nowhere to tell me how much this Chalkboard means to them. I didn’t know it was landing like that. I didn’t know it was the first thing some folks look at every day. I didn’t know the words were traveling farther than my kitchen wall.
A thousand hits a day, plus everyone on Facebook, and half of you never said a word until you thought it might stop. That meant something to me. More than I’ll admit publicly. Oh wait, I just did!
So don’t panic. I’ll still be here every morning. Coffee, quiet house, chalk on the fingers.
You’ll still get your JumboLove.
Just not in real time.
