I was introduced to #Facebook when it first opened to people who were not college students by Lauren Lambert, while she was a student at Boston University.
I was always interested in technology and was an early adopter of the web, having a website in the early 90s, accounts with CompuServe, AOL, Yahoo and so on. Facebook was intriguing. A lot of folks were not interested at the time, but I hopped onboard. Facebook is my personal space. I do not use it for work, I do use it to respond to businesses, but what I use it for most is for personal connections or I might say reconnections with family and friends.
See, I have lived all over the US. I have roots growing up in Cocoa Beach, FL, moved to So Cal after graduation, as the Space Program transferred my dad there when the Apollo program ended. I got married and moved to Oregon. From there my family moved to Silicon Valley. After my divorce, my daughter and I moved to Massachusetts. Later, after two of my children moved to Austin, TX, and had four of my grandkids, my kids guilted us into moving here.
We did not have social media growing up. This is a good thing! Ha-ha. However, staying connected with people I cared about from high school and all my growing up years in Cocoa Beach was not easy. Long distant phone calls were expensive. We had snail mail paper letters and cards—hard to believe adults exist today who have never licked a postage stamp. People moved. Connections were lost. Years later I c connected to some via Yahoo or Classmates.com. However, neither of those platforms compares to the connections I have using Facebook—in fact I don’t go there anymore.
Not only am I connected to the folks I was close to from my childhood, but the scope broadens to circles of friends. I can see what people are up to, who they married, how many kids did they have. It is like a non-stop class reunion of surprises and I adore it. I have renewed friendships and become closer to folks I was not close to years ago. We use the group features to plan reunions.
My parents moved back to my hometown years ago and I tell them news about their town before they hear about it. I am connected to town news and keep them posted. It lets me feel like I live there but obviously I do not. During hurricane IRMA my folks came here to Austin to escape the storm and via Facebook I connected to their next-door neighbor and he sent me videos of my parent’s home to help them feel better about how things went down. Does it get better than that? I could watch when the power and water returned to their community so they could safely return home. I did warn them cable was out, but dad did not listen…so they suffered a week after returning home with no television or internet.
I found my bride’s maid, Carita, online after we had lost touch over the years. I was there when her second child was born at home and I can see her now as an adult via her mother’s photos. I connected to Gracie who sang at my first wedding. I got to see Gracie get engaged and married to her college boyfriend after all these years via her Facebook posts. I connected with the minister who married my ex and I years ago at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, Chuck Smith, Jr.
I have dear connections from my early married days up in Oregon. These connections help keep precious memories alive. I get to see the babies I saw being born now as adults with families of their own. Time sometimes makes takes my breath away. Where did the last 40 years go?
In Silicon Valley, I was privileged to be there during the technology boom. I have friends who I was mom’s with as my kids grew up, friends I worked with when my marriage ended and I was on my own. Friends from my then new hobby of amateur radio. It was here I meant my husband to be and it was on another form of social media, maybe one of the first, via amateur radio…that I met a local guy, Wally Brooks who grew up in Silicon Valley when it was mostly farms. That was 20 years ago.
We moved to Boston in the late 90s. I must say Boston is my favorite place to live. There is just so much beauty and history there that you could spend your entire life exploring it. I have some very dear connections from our days in Boston as well. In my perfect world, I would live up in New England from May to November and winter here in Texas. You don’t have to shovel heat we say here.
I love my connections so it was heartbreaking during this past election when a portion of my friends elected to “unfriend” for whatever reason. I have friends of various persuasions and that is what makes the fabric of life more interesting. If all my friends agreed with me, life would be boring. I like having a complex tapestry of friends from all over the world. The only thing I ask is that folks not be disrespectful or unkind. Typically, I never had to delete topic feeds or comments but I found I had to as folks were being unkind or offensive. I typically like freedom of speech. This election proved trying at best. If someone I wish to stay connected to can’t stop posting things I find offensive, I just unfollow but rarely have I removed anyone off my friend’s list.
I am also connected to cousins and aunts and nieces and nephews and some folks I have met and friended online. I love being able to see what is up with my relatives because my family is spread out all over the world. There would be no way to catch up other than a Christmas letter if not for social media.
To me, Facebook is like this wonderful grid of connections that doesn’t break just because I am not co-located. Facebook connects the dots along the passage of my life from where I was, to where I am today. I think these connections will remain with me the rest of my life, like little windows that open and let me see the faces of the people I love and shows me what they are up to. Thank you Facebook!