I've been out of high school for 36 years now - yikes! - and facebook has made me realize that what I remember hasn't aged as I have. How I picture my friends is how they looked then. When I saw them on facebook it was shocking, like a betrayal, as my mind hadn't aged them with me.
The same happens with landscape and general surroundings. I drove past a place I worked at in the '80's and other than the building, it had all changed. Trees had grown, signs were worn and faded; things that were one thing are now another.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. It makes me lonely in a way, like I lost something I didn't know was missing, yet brings me comfort to know that I knew something then, that we all knew something then, that whether or not we remember now, we still have that snapshot of us in our innocence, our dream phase, like a little secret that we are allowed to carry with us.
So go back and look through those yearbooks and those college notebooks, the ones that are scribbled over with philosophical sayings and hearts around the names of those you love. Cherish what you have kept from your past and be happy with the person it has made you, because you know have new memories of the evolution of those you knew then, and those of who you are now.
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