Here’s one to place in the better late than never category. I joined Facebook this month, and life will never be the same. Don’t get the wrong idea. This big event hasn’t been an unmitigated success. I’ve spent much too much time playing on the website. I’ve had to painfully condense about 25 years of life into predetermined categories that don’t do the trick, and I’ve also had to ponder which of the many faces of Rodney were to be shown in the photo section. My only solace has been that others have had to play by the same annoyingly reductive rules.
There’s also the complexity of re-engaging with those to whom you haven’t spoken in decades. One sometimes wonders if old friends cringe when your new request to become ‘electronic friends’ is received. And, I imagine one cringes, as well, as the person one did one’s best to avoid decades ago sends a message with an offer to reconnect. But, without a doubt, a missing piece to the puzzle of my identity has been located. In the process, I’ve both rediscovered and rewritten my childhood. It seems that the good in individuals lingers in memory and whatever difficulties existed previously have become trivial. Prior relationship infidelities, betrayals of trust, and the pain of hardbound cliques give way to a realisation that perspectives have changed, more important priorities exist, and good friendships, like those of youth, are hard to come by as an adult and should be respected. But, hanging on to past links is sometimes easier said than done.
Those living far away from where they grew up might be aware of the ambivalent feelings attached to the periodic return ‘home’ – be it in person or via the web. The joy of re-connecting with friends is real, but so is the realisation that you’ve slipped back into your old place in the youth social structure despite years ‘abroad’ doing everything possible to move away from it. There’s also the realisation that recreating the past doesn’t work. Longing for the closeness that once made early friendships great, you also dismay at the emotional and intellectual realization that the lives of your friends and you have developed along irreconcilable paths. Children, money, educational attainment, geography have become wedges that pry apart those who were once almost social clones.
Let’s not forget the apprehension of the unknown:
How are your parents? (Ooops, are they still alive?) How’s your partner that I met at the reunion? (Hmm. I hope they’re still married.) You were such a great writer. What are you doing now? (What have I said? Didn’t someone tell me she became an engineer?)
The apprehension felt in delivering an inappropriate question belies our unease with the slate of innocent queries that could dismantle our own house of glass cards. Divorces, career difficulties, financial difficulties, all become fair game for those that are unknowing about who we have become.
Facebook has given me back my youth, but it has also exposed me to the vulnerabilities of my present. My present is largely mine to shape…as long as it fits into the Facebook template. Our lives are never solely how we view them. There’s always a filter through which others view who we have become.
How do we become at ease with the multiple valid perspectives on our identity that exist? Or, actually, should we even care?
