What's with the Facebook Friends?

I haven’t been doing much updating on Twitter nor Facebook lately. I felt as if I was getting swept up in the documenting of my every move and wasn’t spending enough time living in the moment. Plus, it got annoying trying to keep with friends I honestly didn’t care about anymore. It started to feel like an obligatory waste of time to comment on their status updates, look at their funny photos and answer the dumb quiz "how well do you know so-and-so?"requests.

When I finally decided to reconnect again, I found several pending friend requests to administer. I love getting friend requests. About the time I hit 250 on my list, I figured I’d maxed out. I couldn’t think of another person I cared to get into contact with again. But alas, I’m now over 350 as people still keep popping out of the woodwork.

As I was weeding through the friend requests, a few oddities jumped out at me. This is what I just don’t get about Facebook friending:

• Why do people who don’t know me want to be my friend? I don’t care that we have six friends in common. If we’re not friends in the real world, I don’t want to be your friend in cyberspace. I’ve got enough people to keep up with, much less the ones I don’t know.


• If you send me a friend request, why don’t you write something to me too? Whenever I send a friend request, I always include a personal message. If I bother to request your friendship, that means I do care what you're up to and I would like to catch up. I don’t understand why people bother if they truly don't have a word to say to me. What’s the point?


• Let’s also not extend our rekindled online friendship past the line that the real-life friendship existed within. For example, I got a friend request from a girl with whom I went to elementary school. We were friends back then, but were not friends into junior high or high school. I was happy to reconnect and catch up on those early days via a few back and forth messages. But enough is enough. I don’t want to exert any more energy on a friendship I willingly gave up more than 30 (!) years ago; but she doesn’t seem to take the hint. That’s freaking annoying!


• Then there’s the friends you find again, truly want to put in some effort to reconnect with, but neither of you will go out on a limb to take the next step. I’ve been playing it with a few friends—it’s called the “You Call Me” game. It goes like this: “Hey! Great to see you here! It’s been a zillion years! Call me at 555-1212”. Then the reply message says: “Great to see you too! Kids are adorable. Call me at 444-1313.” And then you never speak (nor write) again.

What about you? I'd love to hear your annoyances with Facebook.

Remembering what's important on 9-11

Today is the "anniversary" of 9-11, the downing of the World Trade Center. It seems like only yesterday that I was pregnant with Maya, watching in horror, as the towers collapsed. It was so very sad, sitting in the office with my coworkers, eyes glued to the lunchroom TV as the events unfolded. I cried a lot that day.

Every year on this day, I try to take a moment to reflect on my life and all I am thankful for. It's not often I get a chance to do that. Life gets in the way. That's what I love so much about being in the woods. In the forest, there's no deadlines or carpools or things that demand my attention other than the immediate need to put one foot in front of the other and not trip over any fallen trees branches or loose rocks.

While in Pisgah National Forest, with packs on our backs, Maverick and I hiked up the mountain to Looking Glass Rock. It was drizzling ever-so-slightly. I called upon the rain gods to not rain any harder and spoil our day.

The drizzle and the gray skies kept the temperature low but the humidity clung to the wet forest leaves. I was thrilled to walk quietly through the woods, not seeing another human being. The woods were eerily silent. I thought about how the rainforest in Hawaii was eerily silent too. And Costa Rica. I never knew how silent the forest was before, probably because I never shut up then.

I love the silence now. There's something about a quiet forest. I can't put my finger on it, but its tranquility always has the same effect on me. It wills me to take a big cleansing breath in, hold it, and slowly release. Shuuu...It's peaceful among the quiet, wet wood.

It was the very same peacefulness I experienced practicing yoga on a Maui beach at sunrise. It washes over me when I take some time to just be. Not be a mom, or an errand runner, or a dog walker, boss or wife. Just be.

And in those rare moments of peace, those slivers of time of just being, I reflect upon how very lucky I am. Yes, I can bitch about my thighs or how my commute is sucking the life out of me on a daily basis. I can complain I'm a day late on your birthday card or a dollar short. And I do, I know. Thanks for listening.

But when I'm in those moments of clarity, and on days like today, I'm thankful for so many amazing people in my life. My family and my friends. My girls, of course. My happy, healthy life. But mostly for Maverick, my very best friend and truest love. Thanks for showing me the love...and the peace, baby.

Rekindling Old Facebook Friendships

The other day I was sent a friend request on Facebook by a woman with whom I went to high school. She fondly remembered me from a class we both were in and even had some lovely photos of my very 80s self, which she happily shared. I found it utterly fascinating that this woman had such recollection of my high school days for which I did not. I actually felt badly that I had left an impression on her and even after a cow-poke to my brain, I failed to form a single cohesive memory of her.

And then I had to remind an old friend on Facebook of all our junior high school antics. Missy lived across the street from me and we spent much of our junior high school years palling around. She didn't remember the Jordache jeans we wore so tightly that it required a hanger through the zipper to close the fly. I was stunned that she didn't recall sneaking my mother's cigarettes and teaching ourselves how to inhale. We did these things together....yet I remembered it and she did not. Maybe I didn't make such a strong impression on my friend either.

The funny thing about Facebook is that all the reconnections we make there remind us not only of how many friends have come and gone in lives, but also that there was probably a good reason we let so many of these friendships lapse.

At first I attempted to rekindle some of the previously important friendships. I felt strongly that the core people I cared about would still have relevancy to me now, even if our friendship existed a dozen or more years ago. But those efforts proved to be fruitless endeavors. Some friendships just died off because of distance or circumstance. Some faded because we went off in different directions. And others were just not people I want to be friends with anymore. It was a sad realization for me.

If Facebook has been “good” for anything, it is for the few strong connections I’ve resparked again and that was worth it. When we’re young, it was all about quantity. Now, it’s all about quality. Every now and then, we’re lucky to find a friend we somehow lost our way with and reconnect in a meaningful way. The rest of them on Facebook are just Web 2.0, social networking cotton-candy. Light and fluffy and not much substance.

Sentimental junk

Every girlfriend holds on to things long past its expiration date. From a favorite pair of skinny jeans tucked away until it fits another day to that tube of pink lipstick we can’t stop wearing, sometimes it’s just so hard to say goodbye.

I’ve been chastised for this infamous “Brown Swimsuit” I used to love. It was the perfect combination—a well-fitted bottom that hid all that needed to be covered down below and an equally well-fitted top that accentuated the sisters. Apparently, it was well past its expiration date. Turned sour, really. I haven’t worn that swimsuit in more than a full year, but I’m still harassed to burn it. It’s the (I really liked it!)

The funny part is that I save not only the things I love but also the stuff that doesn’t make sense to keep. And I’m not sure why I’m such packrat, but most girls are. I’ve been known to stash a few things away in a drawer, waiting patiently to be resurrected.

Okay maybe a lot of things.

I have a drawer (or few) crammed with lip glosses, tampons, a recipe torn from a magazine, a notepad, pens in a rainbow of colors, Astroglide, several tubes of trial-sized lotions, a crayon, an appointment card from 2005, six ponytail holders, and some kids’ jewelry. Then there’s an overflowing drawer stuffed with belts and neck scarves (did anyone wear them outside of Dallas?); old costume jewelry that may come back in style in another decade or two, a scrap paper for a playdate with a mother I can’t remember, a dog collar (?), an exercise video, sparkly hair clips, at least a dozen gel inserts for my bras and oh, yeah, more tampons! (Does everyone stash them as strategically as I do around their bedrooms?) Not to mention the “Pocketbook Graveyard” cabinets either. I won’t even get into that!

Some items I’ve saved are ridiculous; it’s the lazy Tracy that forces me to save things such as the half-used tube of airline-sized toothpaste. For the flight I may take in the future, I’ll think “there’s no sense in tossing it.” Instead, I’ll stash away on my desk. It never made it back in the bathroom since the last trip. It’s here on my desk because when I put it there (laziness, remember?), I figured the next time I’d need it, I wouldn’t forget it because I so obviously left it on my desk. Of course, this was not the tube of toothpaste I brought on my last trip, because it got buried amongst all the other crap on my desk. (So it obviously wasn’t obvious!)

Some of the “junk” is worth saving because of its sentimental value. Such as the first Valentine my husband wrote or my kid’s first birthday card. Unfortunately, somewhere along the road of sentimentality, I swung far to the left of center and transformed into a pack rat. I started hording. It’s not just the cards from my husband that I’ve saved. Actually, it’s every card anyone has ever sent to me since my mid-twenties. (And that was quite awhile ago!) Yes, you heard me right. If you are my friend and have ever sent me a birthday card, invitation, birth announcement, holiday photo, postcard, get well card, flower arrangement, gift through the internet, or even a thank you note, I have it cataloged away for safekeeping.

My friend Indie is totally on board with this concept. She just spent an entire day, a completely kid-free Saturday (well, okay, she doesn’t have kids yet), a whole afternoon to conduct an archaeological dig in her guest bedroom closet which stores her troves of sentimental “junk”. I am not exaggerating when I use the term “archaeological dig.” Indie could reconstruct her entire past—every old boyfriend, every injury, and travel destination, she had experienced for a major portion of her early adulthood years—through the careful examination of her collection of junk.

And as an avid junk collector and professional archaeologist myself, I enjoyed our long conversation on the guided tour of Indie’s past. It was hilarious and some of the random stuff she had saved from me, I could actually remember it too. It was a trip down Indie’s memory lane.

Every so often, we all seem compelled to clean out our closets. I’m good for a spring cleaning (and full examination, of course) about every two to three years. But it seems we’re all doing that more often now as we start to approach our 40s. Forty isn’t here yet, but I just passed the exit ramp warning sign that read “40—2 miles.” So perhaps it’s that awareness that pushes us to clean out our memory closet, dust off our favorite things and reexamine both what it meant to us then and how it fits us now.

Indie, my soul sister, and I may be a bit extreme. Not just in the collecting part but the re-examining, inspecting, finding new meaning part. Some girls don’t save quite to that extent. And I know a few who have tossed out most of their junk. They were able to say, “that was then and this is now” and out it goes with the baby’s bath water.

Sometimes we save our junk because we want to hold on to our past. Sometimes we save it to remind ourselves how far we’ve come. Either way, sometimes you just need the closet space.