Just recently I have ventured out to the pasture of my long and colorful memory to see who is still out there; which friends and colleagues long lost could be found. This is a daunting concept to me because you never really know how people feel about you until you try to reengage them in your life even if it is just through cyberspace.
Of course, Facebook was my first passageway into the eons of days past and Google my second but I tripped through all of the solvent social networking systems including Twitter to find the still life fragments of my past. As I was flipping through the pages of cyberspace, I found more than I could handle at times: some sad, some happy and the volume of names was difficult to consume. There was a sad realization though: a lot of my contemporaries were gone.
The older you get, the more you feel your mortality but nothing smacks of mortality like the death of contemporaries. I am now used to viewing the older faces (the smiles and the eyes are always still the same) that I found although some of them still look amazing (good genes and better living I expect). It was the understanding that so many friends had already died of illness, natural causes, accidents, and more. It seems that I had waited too long to contact some of my favorite memory people and how I regret this.
How many times have you wanted to contact someone who made you happy in the past and so you set a mental reminder to tell someone how much they meant to you and didn’t? We tend to think we have all the time in the world yet our clocks are clearly ticking down everyday. As a result, I have dedicated some time each day to speak with a friend or colleague, to thank them for something they have done with or for me in the past; I have resolved to do this until I have exhausted this lengthy list I have produced.
I have many people to thank for helping me over the years. They come in all ages, sizes, and cultures. As I go through this process, I am reminded that I would never have been successful without the help of an army of support. It’s good to be grateful for what you have; it’s better to thank those individuals who made it happen. Sometimes the smallest gesture was the most significant in a single event. Many times people are unaware of what role they even played in your life scenario. Telling them what they did for you or what you witnessed them doing for others is a joy. In my mind’s eye, I can see them back, in their youth, years ago, relieving the event in their minds as we talk and remember. It’s a great and rewarding experience. Here’s to you old friends, all of you, who made life remarkable for me.
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