faces from the past

I can't sleep. So I randomly blog. I figure a large portion of bloggers are like me in that respect.

of course, right now, I'm not on my own computer, because our home network won't work because there's a "node outage" in my community for my cable internet. Damn thing never did this when I had dsl. Heck, it didn't do it when I had anything but Comcast, so what do I really know? But that's irrelevant.

I was browsing Facebook tonight, and decided to see who I could find on there from high school. It's easier than I thought, one little click and it brought up everyone who registered my high school as their high school. It was a bit overwhelming to just look at the school as a whole, so I was able to search by class year. That proved easier. It's been more than 10 years since I've graduated, so there aren't as many of my classmates on Facebook as there are current or recently graduated students.

My class, in fact, has the fewest of the 5 or so years I searched (2 that graduated before me, and two after, plus my own) I wonder what that means? We were really fairly close as a class, I thought. Of course I say this and I haven't had contact with more than 10 of my classmates since graduation, and didn't even go to my 10 year reunion. I would have thought that a social networking site like Facebook would be something they'd all be into. Of course, they all could live in little communities together, in our hometown and New York, Philly, Chicago and LA and not need online sites to stay in touch. And that's more than likely the case. But it makes me sad for people like me who are not in one of those gorgeous metropolitian cities where my classmates have all flocked to. No, i'm in a suburb of a semi-metropolitan city, where I'm sure no one I ever went to high school lives any place near. They're far to cosmopolitian for a hick town like this! But I never really was one to fit in.

But the point of all of this is to say this. When looking at their profile pictures (cause they're also the types who make their profiles only available to their 'network' or their friends) I can't help but think they look exactly the same. Only different. I can see the same 16 year old kid I knew in high school in the face of a 30 something. Nothing seems to have changed, yet they still look different. One girl (see, even now, she's still a girl, not a woman) had a picture from her wedding. She looked exactly the same as she did sitting with me in French class, but exactly like the New York City bride that she is. Kinda hard to explain, but still neat.

I'm sure there are people who I wouldn't recognize if they slapped me in the face (and a few of them just might do that!!) But for the most part, they look so much the same, it's almost scary. I can't remember what i looked like when I looked in the mirror when I was 17. i know I hardly wore makeup, didn't do much with my hair and weighed less than I do now, but still more than the rest of my classmates. I wonder if people would recognize me if i ran into them on the street. Probably. Or they probably wouldn't even notice me.

I think I am now regretting not going to my 10 year reunion. I was afraid of what people would think. I mean, I haven't exactly made something of myself. I went to prom, not because I really wanted to, but because I was afraid I would regret it. One of those seemingly really important things about growing up and about life. I think my reunion was probably in the same category. I think I regret not going. Nothing I can really do about it now, right?

Regret's a really powerful thing.

But that's a blog for another day.

Sometimes I wish I had stayed in contact with more people from high school. I also wish I had the nerve to make "friends request" of them on a social networking site. But I always think they'll think something like "I think I knew someone by that name once, but it's probably just a spammer... DENY!" All these years and the self esteem issues still haven't gone away.