Despite all the junk mail and annoying pop-up ads, there is something hugely positive about the internet. Yes, it’s a global marketplace, a world-wide chatroom, a virtual meeting hall. And it has given me more opportunities in life than I dare count.
It has been an employment source, a communication vehicle and a learning tool. I’ve met new people and have been reaquainted with old friends. I can’t imagine the world without it.
A few years ago, I got a message from an old friend I never thought I’d speak to again. I was stunned at the reaching out, excited at the power of the electronic written word. I’m so grateful we’ve met again after all this time.
It happens almost weekly now, people from my past coming into the present. New emails from old friends, lost over time, lost to life, who still remember the love and good times from what seems like ages ago. It’s exciting to reconnect and rediscover.
People have looked for me, typed my name into search engines and researched my whereabouts. It’s amazingly flattering. And I’ve done the same thing, finding faces that I recognize like the back of my hand. So far, it seems we’ve all grown up and let go of past disappointments, I’m not the only one who focuses on the good stuff. It’s inspiring, it gives me hope.
When most of my good friendships began, the internet was still in it’s infancy. A 600 baud modem was only good for connecting to a BBS, where you could chat with your neighbor down the street one line at a time, if you were lucky enough to have a home computer. We didn’t have cell phones or text messages, or email or long distance calling. A pager the size of a brick was the hottest piece of equipment at the time.
We found each other the old fashioned way then, and now it seems, time and space is a virtual illusion.
