...The More Things Stay the Same

Of all the pithy things that stay with you, the one that comes to mind the most for me is this little internet adage...

"On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog."

Which is why, although I've been wandering around on the 'net since the way early 90's when you actually put your phone ON the modem to connect, I've always been pretty cautious about being "all the way" out there as my whole self. BTW, Chris says that if I remember putting the phone on the modem it must have been the 80's. For the record, I'm not admitting in writing that I'm that old...

The problem is, when no one knows who you are, no one can find you. For privacy junkies, which I can be, it's also a good thing.

Every January, without fail, at the very top of my list of resolutions is this one: Keep in touch with all of the people you care about. Every March, without fail, any attempt I've made to make good on this promise to myself has fallen woefully by the wayside. I've misplaced so many friends I could fill a stadium.

A few years ago I discovered linked-in. A friend invited me, I joined, and forgot about it until about 9 months ago. Then recently some of my friends whom I'd lost touch with found it, found me, and we reconnected. Then I found some more friends and connected again with them. But this networking site is very much "professional" and I want to reach out to folks in a more personal way.

I could, I suppose, try writing a letter, or even an email - which I did for a few of them - but this all seems terribly time consuming when all I really want to do is say, in a few words, "hey...how are you doing? What's going on in your life? Do you miss me as much as I miss you?" Plus, I haven't even sent Christmas cards out in 2 years (yes, I have some friends who thought I was dead, having missed the card business...)

So I wandered out to Facebook. I took the plunge. I used my *real* name. I used my "real" birthday (but not the year because I am, afterall, a Southern Woman.) I let Facebook make some recommendations and I agreed - at least with myself - to be a little less private. A little more transparent. I'm swallowing hard and shaking a bit. The song "If I Were Brave" by Jana Stanfield (I like the version by the Four Bitchin' Babes) echoes in my head and I am diving in.

In doing so, I discovered a few friends that I'd loved dearly and lost touch with, some of them all the way back from my high school years (2.5 decades ago.) And I thought, well...why not? I added them as "Friends" and they wrote right back!

And here I am, reconnecting with these people who were important to me during an important time in my life. I can see already that time has dealt us all different hands and we have shaped our views in response. But I've also noticed that there is this piece of me that is joyful...yes, that is the right word...joyful to hear from these people again. So even if we didn't take the same paths or make the same choices, maybe we are still enough the same to remember why we were friends in the first place.