Facebook

I succumbed. Invited to Facebook, I joined. Hesitantly, nervously, fear and trepidation.

I made a Profile. Friend options appeared. Eleven 'Friends' right off the bat, even with tight privacy controls and pickiness.

I've Chatted with my sister. I've posted to others' Walls, commented on their Comments, looked at Photos of people I normally don't communicate with - my, have their children grown - time marches on and away. My high school/college past has pretty much stayed there, in the past. With exceptions, of course.

Amazing to me how, naturally marching in-step with time, physical aging has grabbed ahold of these once teenage associates of mine. I shouldn't be amazed. Seriously, I have a mirror. But I remember full heads of hair, round, mischievous eyes, straight, square-shouldered energetic bodies. Who are these old people looking out at me? Gray-haired, bald, 'mom' hairstyles, cookie-cutter middle-aged people who look like....well, parents and grandparents? Which is what they are. Which is what we are. But I don't feel the way these familiar faces look. Shocked me. It's normal. I understand why decades ago my sparsely seen childhood relatives patted me on the head while exclaiming, "Look how tall she is! Why, she was only thiiiis big last time I saw her."

Reality check.

The Facebook connection with a favorite high school friend and a beloved college friend is nice. We've always sent Christmas cards. Efforts to get together have fallen flat for the most part. Time and distance, lifestyle and family. After the initial Facebook "How ya doing? We really should get together!" and quick catching up, well, what does one say?

It's interesting, this Facebook thing.

But this blog, your blogs, there is depth there and conversation, thoughts, dreams, humor, beauty, pain, real sharing. It feels like real life. In getting to know you through blogs I feel I've been invited to easy-chair relax with you in your living rooms, to a degree. I've met some of you face-to-face and felt like I've known you for years. Blogs give me a much-desired sense of slowly simmering community full of surprising tastes and textures, an enriched, intricate belonging. Family.

Facebook feels like fast food, or like watching commercials or those entertainment magazine shows on t.v. - fast, flashing, blabby, shallow, annoying. And random. So random.

Yet, I visit Facebook regularly. Curious, you see. And I am sincerely interested in my 'Friends'.

I'll give it more time.

Who knows what goodies may be shaken out of this tree.