On Face Book and the like
We weren't able to do this. This perusing of old faces we only remember with a child's eye. I'll see a name or a face and I'll find myself caught in this weird haze of "Oh my God" coupled with a drive by sideshow of things I remember about or remember doing with this person. When I was younger there was not this begging availability of information and eye candy spilling forth from whomsoever the experience and history belong to. Therefore, unless you were the type to frequent reunions, many people in our lives were left to the freeze frame of a photo album and the rewriting of history we all do to make the dream feel better. We did not have direct access to anyone at any time regardless of geography and circumstance. I find myself wondering what it would have been like to grow up with all of this at our finger tips like our children.
The ones that really catch me are those from childhood. I didn't muck it up (as I am want to do) by maintaining a relationship with them throughout high school, college, or the after world. Essentially, they are frozen in time right along with me for those sporadic moments of returning to a place that only myself and my mind can recall. I'll be awash in images of barbies and riding on the handlebars of a bike or sitting for hours in the weeping willow tree with a skunk and two ferrets, neighborhood street games, bloody mary, bazooka joe, telephone party lines, arcades, the Echelon Mall and dressing up and acting out Grease four thousand times.
Then, there are those that I was close with in high school and/or college but for one reason or another we moved into separate realms and lost touch decades ago. They are sort of like the whopper with fries of Face Book. I get this immediate rush of sheer and genuine delight and then I get the drive by sideshow that accompanies all of these little thumbnails. Which then leads into the screeching crash and destruction at the end.
I have come to the conclusion that I was a really shitty person for the majority of my life. Well, maybe not "person" all the way around: but certainly, a shitty friend. I was a really shitty friend. I don't mean this in the self deprecating, "please, tell me I am way off the mark here," way. This is a simple fact. And I concluded it.
I was selfish and self absorbed and terribly self serving because of it. Of course we all were and are to some extent during particular phases of our lives. But I was a serial shitty friend. I made a lifestyle out of it. And I sort of wore this shedding of people like a badge of honor. Like, "I am completely self reliant and don't you forget it. I don't need anybody. In fact, I don't even want anybody. " Gross. What a transparent facade, really. What that allowed me to do was excuse that I shit on people by claiming it was my inescapable driving force and desire for independence. I let what I wanted become what I had to have at all cost. And damn those who got in the way.
Ew.
Just ew.
Face Book is like therapy in that way. I mean for whack jobs like myself I suppose. It opens these windows into houses that I left a long long long time ago. And it allows me to walk their rooms and take it all in from an entirely different perspective. I can sit in some of them for hours until I am exhausted by my mind's rehashing of everything that ever occurred there. But it is exactly that deja vu of sorts that provides these momentary epiphanies. Reminds me who I was and who I don't ever want to be. Reminds me to be thankful and gracious and honest and humble. Reminds me to be selfless.
And, reminds me of barbies and skunks.
We weren't able to do this. This perusing of old faces we only remember with a child's eye. I'll see a name or a face and I'll find myself caught in this weird haze of "Oh my God" coupled with a drive by sideshow of things I remember about or remember doing with this person. When I was younger there was not this begging availability of information and eye candy spilling forth from whomsoever the experience and history belong to. Therefore, unless you were the type to frequent reunions, many people in our lives were left to the freeze frame of a photo album and the rewriting of history we all do to make the dream feel better. We did not have direct access to anyone at any time regardless of geography and circumstance. I find myself wondering what it would have been like to grow up with all of this at our finger tips like our children.
The ones that really catch me are those from childhood. I didn't muck it up (as I am want to do) by maintaining a relationship with them throughout high school, college, or the after world. Essentially, they are frozen in time right along with me for those sporadic moments of returning to a place that only myself and my mind can recall. I'll be awash in images of barbies and riding on the handlebars of a bike or sitting for hours in the weeping willow tree with a skunk and two ferrets, neighborhood street games, bloody mary, bazooka joe, telephone party lines, arcades, the Echelon Mall and dressing up and acting out Grease four thousand times.
Then, there are those that I was close with in high school and/or college but for one reason or another we moved into separate realms and lost touch decades ago. They are sort of like the whopper with fries of Face Book. I get this immediate rush of sheer and genuine delight and then I get the drive by sideshow that accompanies all of these little thumbnails. Which then leads into the screeching crash and destruction at the end.
I have come to the conclusion that I was a really shitty person for the majority of my life. Well, maybe not "person" all the way around: but certainly, a shitty friend. I was a really shitty friend. I don't mean this in the self deprecating, "please, tell me I am way off the mark here," way. This is a simple fact. And I concluded it.
I was selfish and self absorbed and terribly self serving because of it. Of course we all were and are to some extent during particular phases of our lives. But I was a serial shitty friend. I made a lifestyle out of it. And I sort of wore this shedding of people like a badge of honor. Like, "I am completely self reliant and don't you forget it. I don't need anybody. In fact, I don't even want anybody. " Gross. What a transparent facade, really. What that allowed me to do was excuse that I shit on people by claiming it was my inescapable driving force and desire for independence. I let what I wanted become what I had to have at all cost. And damn those who got in the way.
Ew.
Just ew.
Face Book is like therapy in that way. I mean for whack jobs like myself I suppose. It opens these windows into houses that I left a long long long time ago. And it allows me to walk their rooms and take it all in from an entirely different perspective. I can sit in some of them for hours until I am exhausted by my mind's rehashing of everything that ever occurred there. But it is exactly that deja vu of sorts that provides these momentary epiphanies. Reminds me who I was and who I don't ever want to be. Reminds me to be thankful and gracious and honest and humble. Reminds me to be selfless.
And, reminds me of barbies and skunks.
ecrivaine:
I absolutely loved reading this.. It was very prose poetry and beautiful in its sincerity and everydayness. I agree, Facebook is this strange kind of therapy that shows you know you really are, were, or want to be.
ink_addicted:
Thanks. I guess the reason I sent that rather than posting, was more for length and not for content. I don't mind if people know personal things about me. It actually felt good to share that.