Facebook/Life/Jann Arden

A few weeks ago a friend sent me a request (I guess it is called that) to be his friend on Facebook. I didn't even know what it was so I did nothing. Then the term "facebook" started popping up everywhere. I even read an article about it in the Globe. I wasn't all that interested. I have my blog and that is enough. However this week I received a request from another friend. This friend and I have not be in contact for the last six months. We both have our own reasons. I had made three or four attempts at the beginning of our end, but they were ignored. So I decided I was curious enough about Facebook now to register and find out what it was all about. This is the dialogue that passed between us during a two day period.

Friend: "Wow, whoosh"
Me: "I don't understand"
Friend: "Oh"
Me: "If you want to talk to me, feel free. But this is cryptic"
Friend: "Not cryptic, just playful. How are you?"

That was it. I didn't respond after that. I always wondered if we would be in contact again and what it would look like and how it would feel. I felt indifferent. Now for Jann Arden. I love her. I read her journal that she posts online. By coincidence she had posted this a few weeks back:

"I received an email from a guy I used to work with, a few weeks ago. I have not talked to him for, well, it’s got to be going on 9 years. It didn't end well 9 years ago with him and I. Anyhow…he said that he thought "It was time to change the dynamic of our relationship." It was strange to see his thoughts there on a computer screen. I am not the person he thinks I am. I was never the person he thought I was. My indifference surprised me somewhat. I do not want to look back anymore at anything or anyone. I am going forward. He will just have to find whatever it is he is looking for inside of himself. I can't change the dynamic of anything. Perhaps there was a time when I thought it would be good to go for a coffee and talk and, I don't know, see each other, but that time is so far behind me it's not even distant, it's all but gone.

I have thought that if his note would have perhaps started with some kind of accepting of responsibility for his actions, that I would have reacted differently. But some things do not change. Static is all I can say about him, and that. It was just that same tone of "I didn't do anything wrong." Maddening really. But completely unimportant. Forgiveness isn't for those who have wronged you, it is for you. I have never forgotten reading that somewhere. I think it was a Marianne Williamson book…I wish I knew the title. I do remain grateful for every single thing he ever did for me, but I do not feel forever in his debt. There is a huge difference between the two. Feeling in debt, and feeling grateful…polar opposites."
(taken without permission...I always wonder if my blog will get me sued)

Those words rang so true to me in this situation. I wonder if the contact had been different than a facebook message that started with a "wow, whosh, ok". Those really mean nothing to me. The person is hiding behind an internet site.

I have decided that I don't care for Facebook. To me it is just another tool that allows us to not cumminicate. But I still love life. And I still love Jann Arden. And I see her in concert on Thursday.