No regrets

No regrets, that's a great motto.  If you have to live your life by a motto, try that one.

Recently facebook has exploded with those silly-ass nostalgic "remember back when in your home town" pages and people have just gone fucking NUTS posting memories.  How many of those pages are you a member of?

I am in 4 of them in addition to the 2 pages for my high school.  This is a lot of reading to wade through, people!

And then?

Then someone had the idea to put up a memorial page for my high school.  O. M. G.!  You would swear that my home town was empty there are so many dead people listed!  I got out a pad of paper and started making a list of all the people (okay it's really 2 lists, one of my graduating class, and the other of people I knew who were from other classes) that I knew.  I guess I will stick it in my annual and keep adding to it as I have to.

Since I joined facebook a few years ago I have reconnected with a lot of wonderful people that I never thought I would see again.  I moved away right after high school and then a few years later we left the country and started traipsing around Latin America and changing addresses every 18 months to 3 years. Do you even know how many people drop you like a hot potato if you dare to move and force them to change their entry in their address book?  People are weird, is what they are.

So even those that I had tried to stay in touch with ended up getting lost to me through the '90s.  When classmates.com came out I joined that and immediately got hooked back up with some great friends.  It was a great resource for its time.

Facebook does that same job even better.  (as an aside I think the Google+ will be even better)   And I have been re-introduced to some people and it has made a huge difference in my life.  And I am now going to try to not be all maudlin and such, but still let everyone know how much I appreciate them.

Here's the deal:  on the memorial page listing all the dead classmates?  There is a friend who just passed away last year.  I remember vaguely seeing her name listed within the high school list of "potential fb friends" and saying to myself "oh yeah, I need to remember to friend her".

Well, it's too flipping late.

Shame on me for not being more aware of that little voice and just acting on that thought at that time.  I am not being presumptious and thinking my presence in her life could have changed anything.  But I appreciate so much the small kind gestures and words from my friends and let's face it, a missed opportunity is a missed opportunity.  Sometimes they don't come back by, you have to get your piece said when you can.

I am going to make this claim right here, right now with all of you as my motivation; I am going to do my level best to let people know how much I appreciate them being in my life and to not waste that chance.  And I am going to start with you!

Yes, you.  Thank you for being here.  Thank you for checking in with me to see what drivel I have come up with to talk about. And especially this summer when I have been so sporadic with posting.  It truly does my heart good when I see that I have comments and some of you have come by and given me something to think about.

Life is good.  And it is better when shared.  So again, thank you for coming and sharing in my life. I will try to keep up my end of my relationships so that I am living with no regrets.