2010/08/18

Is This The Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy?

DaGoddess @ 00:19

Facebook is a strange land. It’s a mystical place where time makes no sense, where generations commingle, where children become friends with their parents’ friends.

When I was little, we moved from Ohio to California. Not long after that, a man my dad grew up with also moved his family to California. Our parents were friends and since they had kids, we’d all end up playing together. Their girls were more my younger sister’s age, but no matter, it was all about finding stuff to do while our parents hung out doing whatever it was parents did — drink, talk, play cards, I dunno.

One of the things I remember most about their house was the closet in the girls’ room. Well, in one of the rooms anyway. Their dad had built them a castle playhouse in the closet and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Sure, I was just a year or two too old to be playing in the “castle”, but I didn’t have anything else to do and I certainly didn’t have anything like that at home. So I played along with my sister and the two girls. Didn’t hurt that I was four years older and suddenly the “responsible one”. Ugh. I just wanted to be a kid and have some fun.

Cut to last summer. With my 25th high school reunion, I was suddenly tripping over friends from school on Facebook and since the other high school wasn’t too far away, all of us knew each other. And that’s how I stumbled upon one of the girls from this family, which led to me running into her mom on Facebook.

The surreal part now is that I’ve been emailing with this woman for months off and on and catching up. She treats me as a peer, not as the daughter of a friend from her past. It’s really kind of weird. She talks kids and grandbabies, I talk kids. She talks cruises and I talk airplanes. I’m actually enjoying our exchanges a great deal.

Yesterday we talked B.B. King and the changes he’s seen in the world during his lifetime. Then we spoke of the changes she has seen. Also shared were some of her experiences as she’s traveled around there world, including having her room fill with butterflies while in the rainforest during a storm. They sought refuge and she had the big window open. They considered it an invitation. This was all brought about as we shared stories about amazing moments without photographic documentation. I shared my vanishing herd of horses in New Mexico story, I got many more fantastic tales that have left me enchanted.

It’s weird to see what doors technology opens for us, isn’t it? I never thought, not in a million years, that I’d be chatting away with my parents’ friends online. It just doesn’t compute. But I’m not arguing with the universe this week. Nope. Not me.

1 Comment

  1. Or it can be a rude awakening.

    So happy it’s working out well for you! It is a strange place, FB. And no, it’s not reality. ;)

    Comment by Pam — 2010/08/18 @ 05:53

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