I think everyone goes through a Love/Hate relationship with the ever popular Facebook. Many moons ago, I, myself was reluctant to join. I mean, I had MySpace. What more could I want? Sure, everyone has there annoyances with the long game feeds that you find completely irrelevant and a waste of time (Filters, people!) and minute by minute updates streaming with twitter feeds.
Personally, I probably spend way to much time farming (mmmhmmm, that's right! I FARM and I AM NOT ASHAMED), and looking through photos posted by friends or acquaintances of their children that I will most likely never meet, or places they've been, houses they are remodeling. There are people in my friend list that I have spoken with since graduation from high school in a small midwestern town where nothing changes and people are content with the quieter side of life. There are people on there whose pages I haven't visited in months, but will occassionally stop by to see what's been happening.
Anyway, the one aspect of this social media wave that I LOVE is it's ability to give the opportunity to reconnect with people you have lost touch with by however means. Let me tell you a story.
In college I had a fair amount of friends, but there were those that I was really close to. One girl, L, was one of the best friends I could have imagined having. I went through a really rough time in college, starting in my sophomore year. She had my back and she watched out for me. She did things for me without me asking, anticipating what I would need. We laughed together, cried together. We told each other everything, even stuff we knew the other wouldn't like. One of my favorite times of the day was eating dinner together and talking about nothing and everything.
And then, the last semester before I graduated, everything changed. It wasn't even really the whole semester, maybe the last month. It was petty and immature. So much in part, that I can't even remember WHY things went sour. But they did. I left my undergrad experience in Ohio and moved to California. And I walked away from a friendship I held so dear.
It was hard. I mean, I was hurt and mad (again, for petty reasons). But there was definately a hole where that friendship had been. I was planning a wedding, and I was doing it without included her, and it SUCKED. After a few years, what could I do? Phone numbers changed, as did addresses. I thought about her many times throughout the years, and wondered where life had taken her.
And then, about 7 years later, I saw her on a friend's page. I mulled it over for many weeks, and finally realized...Apologies don't have expiration dates. I couldn't even remebered why I was mad, or had been mad. I wasn't mad anymore, nor had I been for a long time. If anything, I was ashamed of my childish behavior and for holding such an insignificant grudge for so long. I was sorry for my behavior and most of all, for treating another person so badly. I couldn't have made 100000's of excuses, but I didn't want to. The bottom line was, no matter what had happened in my life, was not an excuse for hurting someone else. My hurt didn't give me justification to hurt people in return. I typed long messages, short messages, deleting one after another because nothing sounded right. And finally, I hit send and waited. I got a message back, and soon emails were exchanged.
The other day, I got to talk to her on the phone. And it was like nothing had changed. We were the same girls sitting on ugly furniture in the college lounge, but instead of talking about classes, weekend plans, clothes and celebrity gossip, we were talking about jobs, husbands, and families. I don't think I fully realized how much I had missed her in my life, until she was back in it.
And I have Facebook to thank! True story. So this social media outlet...it's not all bad. :)
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