I finally figured it out. Call me dense or stupid or blindly loyal, but I just kept plodding along in the dark. Until now.
After getting up at my normal 5am time to take the dogs out, I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went on my personal social media page and discovered 
that 6 friends had ‘liked’ a particular heartfelt, heartbroken post of mine.
Six.
I scrolled through friends posts and saw dozens upon dozens (hundreds) of likes on all those Happy Easter and Rainbows & Unicorn posts and thought, yep – folks only want to see the ‘happy comments’ – duh.
But that’s not what I finally figured out.
I already knew some social media friends had ‘unfollowed’ me; perhaps because of my political views, maybe my ‘inappropriate humor’ – who knows, really. But as I went through my friends list – some who have been friends for decades – and saw only their public posts, it slowly dawned on me. I finally figured it out.
I’m not talking about work friends or acquaintances or friends that still have profiles but never post anymore. I completely get that as we now live in the world of Covid19 and are not in it together for the thick & thin. I’m actually trimming a lot of those relationships in my own social media world as well, so no offense meant or taken.
Close Friends.
Friends I had cried with and walked with in their own sorrows over the years, broke bread with, stayed in touch with through thick and thin. Friends I would go to jail for, take a bullet for. Friends for whom I have driven literally hundreds, thousands of miles over the years to visit in their own hardship and desolation. Many of them devout 
Christians who post daily of living their lives by Gospel Values. No Greater Love…
Dear Friends who continued to have open access to my Life and my Mind and my Heart and the very depths of my inner Soul, even as I had not the slightest clue they had not only unfollowed me, but had restricted my access to their own page; privy no more to their worlds or inner thoughts than the checkout person in the grocery store or the garbage man who empties their trash.
I sat there this morning with that thought for a very long while…
I rose from my bed, made my morning coffee, fed the dogs, did the morning chores. And as the sun rose on day
31 of my own Patmos, I deeply pondered what that meant going forward into the Real & Honest part of what comes next.
Starting over is DAMN hard. I know this from decades of personal devastation; over and over and over again. Bruce Cockburn sings, “I’ve proven who I am so many times, the magnetic strip’s worn thin.” And I have.
Through all of this – the many times I thought I could not even get off the floor – I have tried my best in the very worst of circumstances to be honest, open, vulnerable, real. And most of all to still be there for my Friends.
I finally figured it out. Silly me.
Breadcrumbs from the Labyrinth 