After These Forty Years......Reconnecting on Facebook

Recently, I joined Facebook. Even after my brothers had joined, I avoided the website because, frankly, I was afraid my adult children would not want to be my friend. I take total responsibility for this because when a few of them were younger and on MySpace I rather vocally expressed my dislike of some of their "web conversation".  I should have left this alone, because at the time, they were grown and on their own; it was none of my business. So, naturally, due to this past transgression, I hesitated to sign up for Facebook.  I certainly didn't want to risk having ZERO friends. What a smack to the ego that would have been. 

Anyway, as of today I have 82 friends. The biggest surprise has been reconnecting with my high school classmates; this has been an awesome journey for me.

When in high school, I was a bit of a loner. I had the tenth highest GPA out of 365 students.....That made me a bit of a nerd. I spent an incredible amount of time studying. The most trouble I ever found myself in was circling the Sonic Drive-In with Suzie (Her name has been changed in case she ever reads this blog and finds I've "outed" her!) Ft. Sill, Oklahoma was about thirty miles away from our hometown. Sometimes the young soldiers would come over to our hometown....I can't imagine why they would come because circling the Sonic was about the most exciting thing a young person could do then....and go to the Friday night high school football game, of course. Anyway, Suzie and I would flirt with the soldiers...you know, roll down our windows at the Sonic and have a conversation....By NO means, however, did we ever get out of the car or get into theirs or let them in ours... Just wanted to make that "Perfectly" clear!!

I've been thinking a lot about those days since I've been talking with old classmates. Over the years the characteristics that separated us socially are gone; the playing field has leveled. A few of us are a bit overweight and some have a grandkid or two. Basically, we're all grown up now; all of us are within two years of being sixty years old! Incredibly, I discovered a few of my old school chums live within an hour's driving distance of me; one even lives right here in my own hometown! Fortunately, I've had the priviledge of having lunch with a couple of them. Over lunch, the forty years since graduating from high school vaporized; we were the same "kids" we were way back when....

One of the outcomes of this "reconnection" has been how much I have loved visiting with them on the internet. It has been quite like seeing a long lost relative....We share so much history. A couple of the classmates are also girls that attended the same church as my family. I've known them since I was about four or five years old. It was interesting to hear their perspective on my family during that time....sharing thoughts we didn't even know to share back then. 

So.....Thank you Facebook. You have brought a bit of sunshine into my life.....Thank you for reconnecting me to about fifty people that I find I care a whole lot about!!  And...my adult children that have a Facebook account did accept my "friend" request....They Like Me....They Really Like Me.....