"Why, When I Was Your Age...!"

        I think I just need to put something out there...so I can just get over it lol!

        There has been a Facebook group formed for my peers of my high school graduating class.  Besides being a bit stunned that we've all suddenly realized we've hit the age when we start thinking of ourselves as "old", simply because we're having a (many)-year reunion, next year (oh, does that hurt to type), and those of the next generation think we are... sigh...

        I'm also feeling terrified, and while I logically think (emotionally feel) it's silly...it's also reminding me why I've had friends outside of the USA wondering why on earth Americans torture themselves, this way!  All these people have started posting updates about their lives over the past, many years, and some have mentioned how they realize things were sooo not what they thought they were, back then.  Comments like having realized people thought they were jerks, or that they were so shy they wish they could have had the confidence then, that they have, now!

        Granted, if you want to know what I've been up to, all you have to do is check here or the PB Facebook page, 'cuz I've pretty much said more than enough, here!  But it's one thing to be intentionally sharing something with a purpose, and another to be revealing myself as an update to people I'm fairly sure didn't understand me, and probably didn't particularly like me, back then!  I know I'm not alone in that feeling, but... eek!

        I must admit, reading the updates about these people with whom I once spent many of my waking hours, back then, is fascinating!  I'm so happy for those who have been able to say that they have lived lives they are finding happy and satisfying!  And learning the ways they have seen themselves grow and change through experiences they've loved or grieved, is a gift, because we are all realizing we have found a strange sort of common ground.  If for that realization alone, social networking is an amazing gift - we don't just show up every so many years, say "Hi, let's stay in touch!" then fade out - we can still be connected, even if in a strangely superficially-close sort of way.

        There have been losses, among us, and among our families and friends.  It's difficult to live a life of this length, without having experienced some form of loss.  I've attended two funerals of friends from school, one in junior high (we were approximately 14 years old), and one this past May.  Both were particularly poignant losses, for me personally, but as news has spread, we all mourn them.  I know of others who have also passed, and as stories are being shared, there have been even more than we realized.  Among us, we have lost parents, grandparents, siblings, spouses, children...and relationships like marriages, along with many other things we'd never expected to grieve.

        On the other hand, we have also had some really wonderful things happen!  Achievements great and small, on world and personal scales!  Degrees and accomplishments, careers, marriages, families, and all kinds of amazing adventures!  As I've reconnected with people, whether those with whom I was closer, or even those I never would have thought would have even remembered me, I have felt proud of them, because each life has been lived, and we've all experienced it.

        And yet...despite my feeling this sort of common ground...the idea of my sharing my own life's adventures scares me to bits!  I'm a fairly private person (one might never guess it, with this blog and such), and I don't like to share the more intricate details of my life.  I'm great with sharing what I've learned, which is why the PB Project has been able to move in the direction it has!  But there are just a lot of things I don't share openly, greatly in part because they involve others, and I like to keep them out of it.  So I'm not even sure what I would share, should I ever decide to try!

        Perhaps this post was simply my way of telling the Universe that I'm at a loss, and to please have mercy.  Hopefully as time moves on, we'll all realize wondrous things we never could have imagined possible, coming from this all!  As they say (those all-wise, all-knowing They), "Trust the process."  Whatever that is.  But for now...that's all I can hope to do.

        Better days ahead, my friends!