FACE IN THE CROWD

Whenever I log onto Facebook, my life flashes before my eyes. And I don't think I like that very much. I'm certainly an easy mark for the site's more addictive qualities -- the word games, the indulgent "things about me" lists, comparing how I've aged against people I've known for decades. Facebook functions as a reunion of every facet of my life -- and it makes me realize I don't want to spend too much time in some of those places. 

I used to be someone who clung closely to nostalgia -- I'd pull out old photos, read old letters, think of how much better things used to be, because, of course, the present never measure up when its measured against the past or the future. I'm not very nostalgic anymore, though. Part of the reason is I no longer have the space in my mind and time in my life to take those flights of fancy. Also, my house lacks meaningful shelf space, so the pictures, the letters, the boxes of memories stay out of sight in the garage, piled under garbage bags filled with outgrown kids clothes and grocery bags filled with receipts dating back to forever. My vinyl's in there as well. I do harbor a fantasy of converting the garage into an office/hang space in which my kids will be introduced to this primitive form of music listening. It doesn't look good at the moment, but it is this small thing that keeps me pushing forward, attempting to convert my creativity into an impossible amount of cash. 

As for the nostalgia, I get more than I could ever ask for on Facebook. All eras of my life are represented among my 300 + "friends." There's a girl I've known since the age of 6. There's the high school people, the college people, the people I've known through various jobs and the women I've kissed, slept with, or at least wanted to. In this virtual world, all is forgiven. We can all be "friends" and share our kids' pictures and be really anything we want to be, creating personas via the types of items we post or link to, the notes we create, and the professional shilling (oh, sorry, networking) that sometimes goes far beyond what I would define as good taste. 

I experience a particular sensation with I check in with my college friends. I was a student at UC Berkeley in the 1980s and lived in a co-op called Barrington Hall. I won't attempt to describe the living experience here, other than to say it was like a really passionate, really unhealthy love affair that seems a lot more fulfilling when seen through the rear view mirror. 

There is an "Ex-Barringtonian" group on Facebook, of which I'm a member. Granted, I have no inhibitions about posting photos of myself from 20 years ago in various narcotic states, wearing various shades of eye shadow. Sometimes, though, I read the boards on the group page and get the same rush of emotions I felt when I lived there -- that there is a hierarchy in which only "old members" truly fit in. Objectively, I understand that this is merely my personal hang up. That perhaps there is a part of me stuck in a state of arrested development -- the insecure 20 year old who always felt on the outside looking in. Strangely, though, I was "friended"  by someone from Barrington who never bothered to speak to me when we lived together. And all I can think is Why? 

By contrast, when I observe (read: spy) on some of the "wall" postings of people whom I knew in high school, I realized that I had in fact grown. Certainly, I'm not the most private person; I've written extensively in print about my childhood, much of it not very pretty. But sometimes I feel like I'm at a high school reunion from hell -- that Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days" is on an endless loop (which, of course, makes me want to drive my car off a cliff). But again, this is my own hang up. I'm being judgmental, I suppose. Who am I to mock those wanting to capture some of the alleged magic of decades past? Well, why can't memories just be memories? 

The Internet just ruins everything.