In My Life
There are places I remember All my life, though some have changed Some forever not for better Some have gone and some remain All these places have their moments With lovers and friends I still can recall Some are dead and some are living In my life I've loved them all
-- Lennon & McCartny (The Beatles)
This windy, rain soaked weekend has been one of introspection and, at the same time, reaching out. I have been having a lot of insomnia and at the same time have been amassing a collection of music dating back to my childhood, high school and young adult years thanks to iTunes and YouTube. This collection exploded when a friend showed me how I could convert --apparently legally -- YouTube videos to .mp3 files.
Musical memories from more than 40 years old have been assaulting me for weeks and somehow, probably because of my manic issues, I felt a need to act upon them. I started looking up old classmates at classmates.com and linked my high school and year of graduation to a list of people on Facebook.
On classmates.com, the system leaves a note when you visit someone’s page and I received an e-mail that was both funny and filled with pathos from an old swimming teammate. And I in turn sent facebook messages to several people. I then found my very first girlfriend by googleing her name and home town and came up with a listing from junior high school. I then traced her via classmates.com and sent her a message. She had a new (married) name and, like me, moved to a different school after junior high. She is a private person and I’m not going to share the contents with you other than a tremendous flood of memories of an innocent, pure first love were shared, mostly from me to her.
But as I "friended" others on Facebook, memories of the smallest details from things I hadn’t even begun to remember came out.
Sometimes the memories were of seemingly insignificant things, like a meeting in a park. Others were of a funeral of a man I called my best friend. And more than the memories, came the feelings about them. It was almost as if I was there again. Some were of things that were unshared ever in high school, but easily shared with an intimacy that would have been impossible decades ago as the angst of our youth would never permit it.
I’ve spoken to many people who wish they could return to the past, knowing then what they know now—and making things different. With the Internet, we are able to time travel in a way and though it is close to 50 years since I last saw people, the need to make things different still lives deep within me. In some ways, I think it’s sick and in other ways I think there only is one choice. It also scares the hell out of me, which I suppose a re-visit to adolescence should do
I sent a message to one person telling them I remembered a moment with them following a class play. She e-mailed me back and told me I had the wrong person and I then e-mailed her back with my other memories of her and she realized I had indeed known her. We shared some things that we would have kept in our deepest secrets in our youth. It’s incredible how you can be so open with people you haven’t been in contact with in such a long time.
Anyway, I just want to say to Joyce, George, Larry, Susan and Valerie thank you for making such a really dreary weekend so wonderful and I’m glad you once were, and still are, a small part of my life.
And for Rosemary:
Though I know I'll never lose affection For people and things that went before I know I'll often stop and think about them In my life I love you more
