Comment: Fresh Starts

I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in one place for your entire life. The idea, honestly, terrifies me. I have gone through so many personality phases/iterations that I can’t imagine the 41 year old me having to deal with the sins of the 20 year old, or the angst of the 15 year old. All that memory-making in one place? No thanks.

But I do envy it sometimes. We move around a fair bit, but not as much as military families, who really have to learn to adapt anew over and over. What I envy in those who stay rooted in one place is the deep social networking, the clear knowledge of surface streets, short cuts, good places for sweet Italian sausage, a tried and true hair stylist you actually get to know, and neighbors whose names you are at least familiar with. You just don’t get that when you move a lot.

But you do get the chance to start over. Which can be fun. But also habit-forming. I have this sense that if I stay anywhere too long, then people will get to know me too well and will stop liking me, so it kind of helps to move after every major life change. I mean, the idea of raising kids where I once vomited in the street as a teen is not pleasant, and thanks to my semi-nomadic lifetstyle, I don’t have to. Phew.

I guess I’m being a little “male” in my compartmentalizing, but there you go. I tend to have chapters of life, and then move on. Of course with kids, you don’t get this luxury. Any screw up is permanently on the record, so you need to be the best person you can be ALL the time. It’s exhausting. But a really good idea.

Anything you do online is also permanent, which scares me even as I type these words, but not that much, because I’m not doing anything provocative. (Or maybe telling the truth is provocative…am I being so provocative that I just blew your mind?)

Enter Facebook. Here is everyone you wanted to see and not see, all in one fact-filled, endlessly dynamic, Twitteresque state. You can tell everyone what you ate for breakfast, as well as be reminded of the many breakfasts in the dining hall you were still drunk for from the night before during college. You can reminisce with people you haven’t talked to in 15 years about the time they hurled on your car! See photos of your fifth grade nemesis and note with annoyance that she is still NOT fat. Such a productive way to pass the time.

Anyway, I am eternally grateful that there is no record of some of the things I did in my past, even though primarily they were normal, garden variety offenses and neither particularly offensive nor illegal. So glad the Internet was Internot. (sorry)

But of course you can’t escape your past. And some of it is worth salvaging. There are some cool people I’ve found (or have found me) online (on Facebook, natch) who remind me that some core things don’t change, and we can pick up right where we left off 20 years ago (minus the electronic music and electric Jello™ shots). But inevitably you end up digging through the past, looking at people you used to know and remembering things you did not enjoy, and alternate between relief that that time in your life is over and wistfulness for the rosy-hued past events you’ve romanticized beyond recognition over the years.

Starting over with new friends in new places just adds more layers to your past. When you walk into the metaphorical room for the first time every couple of years, you get a clean slate. And clean slates are good.

But I’m learning that no matter how many times you start over in a community, you still bring your self, such as it is, with you. And that includes your memories. So the whole reset thing is illusory. So maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to live in the same place where you grew up. After all, I’m enjoying Facebook, and it’s a huge neighborhood full of memories that never go away.

And never will.