More and more people I went to high school with are discovering me on Facebook and I don't know how I feel about that. I mean it's cool when co-workers discover me on Facebook or people you went to college with find you on there but I feel kind of uneasy with old high schoolmates coming across me. Wasn't it Mark Twain that said, "You can never go home again?"
I guess I feel this way because I have learned over the years that people you grew up with have the tendency to want to "reminisce a little too much". It's cool to remember somethings but spending 3,4,5 hours on how it used to be or remembering how you used to be does not set well with me. Maybe people will say about me that I'm trying to block out some things in my past or maybe that I think I'm better than them but at this age of my life, so what.
My childhood wasn't the worst but it's nothing to write home (sorry about that) about. As a child I was very insecure, stuttered really, really bad, didn't feel I was attractive. I think I tried to hard because it was something how some people would come over when they needed something but when I went to visit them I wanted to be around them. Now don't get me wrong I had some really cool people back in my hometown and come to think of it they are not on Facebook (or so I think) and maybe that a key too.
The last thing I want to hear is, "man remember when you stuttered so bad that you could barely talk" and "Dude I think you was the only classmate that never went to the prom" or "Remembered when you score "x" amount of point in the basketball game?" Maybe I'm being too hard on myself? Maybe I'm being too hard on my high school chums? Maybe, Maybe? Naw.
I never had a girlfriend and good knows I wanted one but I look back now God had has angels around me because with me wanting it so bad and at the time really didn't know about sex I would have had upten kids maybe still at home with momma sleeping in my room with that poster of Tony Dorsett on the wall (that's a lie...it would have been a poster of Franco Harris of the Steelers...couldn't stand the Cowboys back in the day.) And I admit I think people can smell desperation on you when you want something so bad and that you want to belong. Come to think of it I may have been the Ally Sheedy character from "The Breakfast Club" being a outcast just because I was mad at the world. I will admit some of the misery I brought on myself and some was people being cruel but when you're young you take it...you dish it out, either way it's not cool. But with those struggles made me a stronger person, made me to realize that when growing up in a place where everyone knows you it's cliques and once you get the courage to move from your comfy zone it's a whole new world out there. Even though I may not have had the best childhood God instilled in me many days to think "outside" the box...I loved going to the library in our town...it wasn't large but it was my escape...I stayed there hours on hours looking at World Atlas books, reading Sci-Fi books, reading The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mystery books...just thinking about that brings a smile to my face.
In the long run I don't think I want to go down "memory road" I love the people I have met at work, through the social networks, my podcaster buddies, college buddies. I haven't been to my hometown in close to 10 years and I don't think I will be going back any time soon because I love my life now, I love the place I'm at in my life right now.
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