Facebook can be almost erie at times.
In the past week, I've reconnected with 2 different friends from 2 different parts of my life- both of which were over 20 years ago- and I feel like I've been thrown into a time warp.
Last Friday, my elementary school friend- Angela with the long, thick, dark hair and I did the Facebook "oh wow" reconnection dance. She looks beautiful and happily married, living in picturesque Hawaii. I was so delighted to hear from her and immediately asked how her happy-go-lucky twin, Tony, was.
In grade school, Tony was the class clown and made us all laugh and laugh until we almost peed our pants. He was often rewarded with masking tape over his mouth (can they even do that now?), so it sort of felt like he was sacrificing himself for the sake of making more laughter in the classroom, and we appreciated it and he was very well liked by all.
I remember that when we'd play handball and dodgeball on the playground, he'd strut around with his chest puffed out singing Pat Benetar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" to get the opponent riled up, and it both worked as intended and made everyone on the playground laugh.
Angela wrote back that he'd passed away in 1996 after a terrible car accident. I've felt just crushed by this sad information since I received it. I hadn't seen Tony in 25+ years and the accident happened 9 years ago, but here in March of 2010 it all felt so fresh. RIP Tony.
I also reconnected with my college friend- Martha with the long, thick blonde hair. She also looks happy and beautiful and is living in picturesque Key West. I'd actually had a dream about her out of the clear blue and impuslively got up in the middle of the night to check to see if she was on Facebook, and lo and behold, she was. Love how FB can be an instant gratification like that, even at 4 in the morning.
Happily, no tragedy on Martha's side- just art dealing and historic house refurbishing and one fabulous shiny gold dress that she wore on a Dragon Boat float in the Fantasy Fest parade.
21 years!? Yikes! How on earth could I have been 19 TWENTY ONE years ago??
Thinking about Martha and our crazy car trip from Arizona to Colorado has been so much fun. I remember that this guy (whose name I forget) in our dorm had just gotten a new car and for some reason he decided to lend it to us to take for our week long road trip across state lines. Why would a rational person do this? Martha talked him into it, with ease and grace.
Almost as soon as he handed over the keys, Martha got an air of mischief about her and busted out with this bumper sticker that she actually stuck right there on his brand new rear bumper right in front of him and the rest of us standing around:
"Skateboarding Is Not A Crime."
The guy looked dumbfounded, and flabbergasted, and I almost died from shock and delight.
The car had been a boring itty bitty beige thing, and the bumper sticker actually made it 10 times better. Martha became my instant hero and off we went. Our week included rugged Alaskans BBQing in shorts and t-shirts (and no shirts) in the snow and great skiers with dreadlocks who showed us the back roads and back trails of Telluride.
When I start thinking about it here in the spring of 2010, it feels like that spring break is still within reach, and I'm transformed into that carefree college girl along for the ride. Cool how a little tool like Facebook can bring old memories back to life in such a vibrant and poignant way.
