So a videotape has maybe emerged from a party at highschool. (Someone has the tape and claims it is from a party and involves all sorts of scandalous things.) And those of us supposedly on the tape have been having a really good time chatting on facebook. But I notice several things.
A) These are neat people! I like them! I'd like to get to know them. But I haven't a clue as to who they are!
B) I don't fit in in that group. I sort of fit in, but their rhythms and mine are different.
Part of it may be that they kept in touch and I moved from sea to shining sea.
Two of us started talking about what a particular teacher meant to us, the really deep yearnings we had at that age to fit in while dealing with deep wounds. Something about John has made me own my vulnerabilities a little more. Someone else made a wisecrack, one that would have deeply hurt me 20 years ago, and the vulnerability lifted, replaced with one-liners about illicit substances. But that was OK. I would have much more enjoyed the conversation if it had continued along the original lines, but it didn't feel like a rejection, the way it would have so long ago.
C) I'd still like to fit in. I'm SO grateful to have a corner of my sky where I do fit in, but it would be nice to go see these people who meant so much in the early years and pretend I could be a part of a group.
D) It's all OK. I have a beautiful life, and it really seems like these colleagues have beautiful lives too. One of the many marvelous things about growing up is that you aren't constricted by geography.
Isn't it odd that when I first discovered the internet it gave me a chance to find people like me, all over the country. To not be constricted by geography. And now, I'm using the internet to go back to the people to whom geograpahy constricted me?
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