Lessons From Facebook

I’m one to let doors stay close. When I move forward, I try not to look back. Too many times it is the painful memories that are the most powerful. It has been that way throughout my life. I move forward. Staying in the past is too much. When I signed onto Facebook, the past came back and with it memories.

I ventured into Facebook because of the book I had published. I had been told that getting myself and the book out there was to network. OK. I can do that. I was scared, but I could give it try. I began with family and a few friends. I held back venturing much further. But the past always beckons us.

I couldn’t help it. It was the year of my high school’s twentieth reunion. No one from high school knew where I was. My best friends had disappeared off the face of the earth and no one from my graduating class knew my married name. I had kept that door closed. But temptation and downright curiosity got the best of me. I started looking for high school friends.

When I found them, I just looked at their names. Too many memories surfaced. There were many good ones. There were many that tore at my heart. Fear, humiliation, and loneliness filled me. So much of who we are happens in our teenage years. The drama that unfolds creates the adults we are today.

I was always an introvert. Any stranger that spoke to me received a bent head with a beat red face. I hated crowds and new people. I trusted easily. I wore my heart on my sleeve. In many ways this is still me. I still hate meeting new people and would love to crawl under a table and hope no one sees me. I have to rack my brain what to say to people because I know that I have to find the right words because mine will never do. I am suspicious of people because trusting even those closest to me has resulted only in betrayal. I still wear my heart on my sleeve and hurt easily. Why? Because I found that most people mean what they say and have daggers buried in their words and actions. Why go through all this again and bring up the girl who cried so much? Because she had not healed.

The first person I befriended was a boy…… Let’s stop there. He is no longer a boy. We are almost forty years old. We have grown up. I need to stop looking at them all in that way. They are men and women now.

To get back to it – I found a man who I had the hardest and longest crush on. I fell for him in ninth grade and never got over him through the next few years. We were not meant to be anything put friends over those four years. I always appreciated that. I was a plain Jane. He was cute and flirtatious. Because he spoke to me others were less likely to make fun of me. I contacted him to be a Facebook friend. He accepted, but he had no idea who I was. I had kept my maiden name out of it. I was still too afraid of what would come out of all this. What were his memories of me? Did he even remember me? I also took a chance to contact him through the chat feature. If he did not treat me rudely, I might venture to another person. This was my test before moving forward. I was almost giddy with relief at his response. It was positive. There was no coldness or snobbery. He was the same in our friendship as he was twenty years ago. We reminisced about the clubs we were in and the camping trips that were so much fun. He even remembered holding my hand once. Just good fun remembering the past. This wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be. My daughter thought it was because of my old crush. I explained to her that it was because I opened a door and didn’t fall to my death.

Let’s try another one. I found another guy that was in so many of my classes. In fact, I always felt like he should have been the one giving the speech at graduation instead of me. He was so smart. I approached him and he was happy to hear from me. I couldn’t believe it. That was two for two. Could it be that it wasn’t all that bad?

OK, I found another friend who was in most of my classes. I asked to be her friend. She accepted, but something told me that she didn’t know who I was. After about a week or so, I felt so alone because she didn’t know who I was. We were not best friends, but we had a lot that we experienced together. She was a great classmate. I tossed and turned for awhile over whether or not to put my maiden name out there. So one day I took the chance and did it. The response from her was great. Then I saw something that kicked me in the stomach.

Two of her friends who commented on her entries were two boys (sorry, men) whom I had dated and whom I broke up with over her. They all wanted to date her instead of me. I wasn’t mad at her or anything for communicating with them. It was the memories that it all brought up.

The first boyfriend who forgot my 16th birthday and then wanted to dump me to ask her out. I beat him to the punch. We stayed friends, but the pain of a first boyfriend lasts a long time.

Boyfriend number two who took me to prom and then I discovered that I was second choice and he wished I was her. The result was me breaking it off and then nastiness and revenge from his friends. I couldn’t show my face for the lies told.

The pain was deep. I hated what had happened. I didn’t want those memories. I had such a low self-esteem with boys as it was. It only got worse. It took the contact from boyfriend number one to show me that high school is just a bunch of painful drama. Nothing more.

He became my friend on Facebook and struck up a chat. In so many ways he was the same guy. In many more I found a man instead of a boy. He had grown up. He had changed. He was different. We talked of the past. We joked. He apologized for his actions. Made me feel good, I must admit. If he had grown up and matured, maybe everyone else had, too. I was learning a hard lesson. I cannot keep judging people on my past view of them. I have to give them a chance to see if they had changed and grew up. I had. Why couldn’t they have?

A few more people entered my life on Facebook. A few I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to accept their friendships. The past with them was bad. The last time I spoke to one girl, she cussed me out because I would not say that she was the best friend I ever had. (Were we that overdramatic?) Another made my life a living, well you know, for over a year. She was deceitful and mean. They had all received me warmly and when they talked about their life, it was a very different one from high school and even college. They had changed. They had grown up.

I learned not to make memories as eternal things. They did happen and in that regard should not be forgotten. But to make memories current events is not right. Twenty years is a long time. Wonders can be made during that time. Miracles can occur. I’ve changed more in the last few days that I have in the last few years. I discovered friends again. I discovered that time can heal wounds. I haven’t found a few really close friends out there. I wonder if they are even alive. I’ll keep looking. I don’t want my memories to be jaded by time. I want new memories with a clearer reality.