The wonderment of lost connections is an all too common phenomenon in these modern days of Facebook and various other sites for social networking. I say various other because I know they are out there, but I am steadfastly refusing to look any further than Facebook. Of course, it should be said that I resisted Facebook for quite a while, too, but ultimately lost that particular battle.
My friends list falls into three basic categories: new friends, family, and school friends. Having the odd blend of family mixed in tends to keep my Facebook use somewhat benign in many ways, but I really do like it for the quick note here and there, as well as just the basic sense of connection and keeping up with people I care about.
Recently, I found a man I knew one long weekend in the eighties who asked me to marry him. If there is such a thing as love at first sight, I would have to say that Tom came close. I can pretty much say with certainty that I wasn’t in love with him, but if I had a passport at that time, he very well would have been my husband, and I would have been whisked off to Norway without a second thought. There was something magical about Tom and I can be impetuous like that. He’s the first person who told me how beautiful I was and I knew he meant it and I could feel the beauty he saw. I knew inherently he wasn’t telling me I was pretty. He saw into me and I believed him. Knowing him changed me in ways that I haven’t ever really thought about until I came across his profile on Facebook. Because of him, I know Elizabeth is sincere when she tells me I am beautiful, and I can be comfortable in the sensations that wash over me, with no doubt arising.
I dashed off a note to Tom to see if he is indeed the same person. That will be enough to satisfy my curiosity. I sent it off and am totally unattached to the outcome. There might be no reply. There might be a “Yes, how wonderful to hear from you! How glorious is your life?”. There might be a “Nope. Sorry, Not me.” Just thinking about my 5 days with Tom in my life has been enough reconnection for me to keep a nice pretty bow on the memory.
One thing it has me contemplating is how old Tom might be. I can’t pinpoint an exact date, but I am pretty certain our time together, brief as it was, was in December 1986. That would mean I was 22. If I have to guess, Tom was 35, maybe 40, or maybe 30. I am terrible at estimating age, but their is a maturity and elegance surrounding Tom that suggests to me memory he was 35-40. There was an essence to him that was simultaneously still and teeming with movement. I will be 45 next week, so by these projections Tom would be near 60. That seems somehow a very foreign notion. I think I would much prefer people of my memories, that I will likely never see again, to sometimes stay the way they were.
Thinking of Tom as 60 brings to mind Eckhart Tolle. I can’t help letting my mind make the comparison. There’s something quite lovely about it. I could let my brain spin out of control with questions or designs on how Tom’s life has unfolded, but I won’t. I can close it down and pack him back into the closet with the rest of the nostalgic offerings.