Connectivity

I joined Facebook on Wednesday morning so I could view a friend's photo album. Since then I've been connecting with old friends at a break-neck pace. I feel I haven't even scratched the surface. Every time I scan through a friend's list of friends I see faces that I remember, and the flood-gates of memory open up.

I remember the conclusion of a night of high stakes pinochle when we discovered that Nathan had parked his car in the middle of a frozen puddle. After 20 minutes of pushing, Brian and I were about ready to give up on him and make him walk home (even if he froze to death on the way—what on earth was he thinking when he parked there?) when Nathan said cheerfully, "Hey dudes, maybe I should take the parking brake off."

Then there was the time that Krista and I hijacked Jane's stuffed animal and left a ransom note with the following message: "We have your whale and you’re not getting it back! Leave $1,000,000,000 dollars in unmarked bills in a suitcase in the bandstand in Central Park, (take a left by the ducks), and don’t look back. Don’t contact the police. We are too clever to be caught...so don’t even try...Yours sincerely, Alan and Krista"

In this process of discovery, I have made two major realizations:

1. I am so blessed to have had wonderful friends in every chapter of my life.
2. My mistake has been to close the previous chapters of my life too readily.

I have always enjoyed new challenges and new horizons. I just need to savour more richly the friendships that I have in each chapter and keep them alive until the last chapter (and have them correctly indexed in the appendix).