I summon up remembrance of things past

A couple of weeks ago, I did what I had previously thought was the unthinkable and got me an account on Facebook. Unthinkable because I had thought it was all a load of bullocks. I mean, Jesus, what's the point of it all? It's such a fad, ain't it? And I God damn hate fads (at least, now I do!)

It all started out innocently enough. I wanted to see what some old friends, family members and colleagues look like nowadays but to no avail - you had to be a member of the club to do that, no gatecrashers allowed. So I said, what the hell, let's do it, let's get on the Facebook and watch what happens. And I did.

Had to type me contact info first - easy enough. Post a picture if I wanted to - used me knitting songbird pony, of course, until Davor was kind enough to send a photo from France of me. Do a profile if I wanted to - copy-pasted me blog profile. Agree to something or other - donating a kidney perhaps? And then the search began.

First they recommended people that I probably knew, mainly people from "the firm". So I got me a few friends quick smart. Then I looked for me mates from the here and now. A few more friends to the list. Then I started searching for people I hadn't heard from in a bit, a couple of years or so. And got me even more friends.

But then I dug deeper and looked up people that I hadn't seen in ages, donkey's years. People from primary and high school, people I hadn't heard from in (I'm ashamed to say it) 20 or so years. We're talking a lifetime ago. These are people that I shared school benches, sandwiches, dreams and teenage angst with. These are people that I talked to about the latest fads and pop star crushes, danced with at school discos (who can forget those???), had my first stiff drink with behind me mum's back, discovered Shakespeare, Austen and all the rest of the greats with, drew on their shirts on the last day of school. And we hadn't heard from eachother in 20-odd years.

When I saw all those faces staring at me, the emotions were quite overwhelming, and oddly confusing. Feelings of joy at being able to see them in the here and now, seeing where they had come and all that they had acheived both personally and professionally, sadness that it had taken us this long to get together, albeit, "virtually", and for all the people I would never find on Facebook like Renata who died in '88 in a car crash or Ante who died just over 3 year ago to cancer, regret for times past, for things I have done and haven't done.

And then I asked myself, Knitting Songbird, if you could, would you go back? Would you sit in your little time machine and take a ride to say '83 to the first year of high school? Would you do it all again? And honestly, I wouldn't. There are some things I regret, people I miss, situations I would change. But like Richard Bach put it "There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go."

And that's it in a nutshell. We learn from the past and life is an ever changing evolution. We know where the beginning is but keep developing right up until the end, which we don't know where lies. And it's all the people and the experiences we have with them that make us us, that mould us into the people we are and become, for better or worse.

I thank God for all the people in my life, both past, present and future. I love you all. To all of you, I dedicate this sonnet by Shakespeare, no. 30 to be exact.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.