Facebook – The Ultimate Connector

I’ve written about Facebook before. How it’s a great way to decipher every degree of separation from Kevin Bacon.

And now? I am just about stupefied silent (right) by the people that are reappearing in my life through Facebook. I feel I must tell everyone that Facebook is more than a teenager’s what-are-you-doing-right-now kind of site.

With Facebook, you can reconnect with family, friends and your school mates. Good Lord, you could probably find Jimmy Hoffa on Facebook!

I graduated from high school in 1983. There are a few people that I still communicate with regularly, but let’s face it. That was 25 years ago. Gulp.

People that were important to me back in those days haven’t been on my mind for many years. Except for the three or four that I still talk to – high school has been a very distant memory.

Then one day I log on to Facebook. And there it is, staring me in the face. A friend suggestion from someone in California. Gilbert Daudistel. Eighth grade. Whoa.

I added Gilbert as my friend. Haven’t talked to him, thought of him or anything since we threw our caps in the air at graduation in 1983. I remember his Davy Jones haircut and his mouth full of metal.

With a quick catch-up email through Facebook (exactly how do you catch up on 25 years in a ‘quick’ email?), I learn he is now the father of three or four dozen boys, has a gorgeous wife and has done some serious military service. He is also apparently fluent in Russian.

What happened to the awkward Gilbert that blushed all the time?

And that’s how it began. Now, more than 20 of us from our drama club in high school have reconnected. Even our beloved drama teacher, Kathy Juarez, has reconnected with all of us. It’s plain crazy, people!

Their pictures all look the same. Nobody seems to have changed much. Some have come out of the closet, some have married and divorced more than once, some are still chasing big dreams, and some have made their dreams come true. It also seems that every darn one of us is still involved in creative arts in one way or another. Dance studio owners, screenplay writers, column writers, novelists, actors, teachers. . . it’s just been a really cool experience.

I feel just a little bit younger, and the world feels a little bit smaller.

Until I see pictures of all those children that my school mates have spawned. Many are in high school, some even in university now. The littlest children belong to those friends that seemed to take their time to continue their DNA line. I feel my youngest when I see those toddler aged children standing against the legs of my school chums. Then I feel like the clock is ticking properly, that time isn’t spinning too fast.

I wonder if, 25 years from now, we’ll all be too old to type our status changes on Facebook? Will we go from a status of ‘Joyce is getting ready to party the weekend away’ to ‘Joyce is currently napping away her golden years’?

Will I be Facebook friends with the great-grandchildren of my high-school mates? Will Facebook take place of actual reunions now that we’ve virtually connected?

Really, even if I were never able to ‘see’ these friends again, it might be okay. Without Facebook, who knows when I would have connected with these people again?