Old friends

~I keep reading posts here and there about people finding old high school and elementary school friends on FB, sometimes welcomed contacts, sometimes not. I love FB for helping me stay in touch with family, bloggy friends, and friends from seminary and grad school, but I've been singularly unable to find my old high school and elementary school friends, even though I've searched in various ways.

~Perhaps it's my age. There are certainly less people of my vintage on FB than people 10 years younger than I am, although that is changing every day. But maybe it's something about my particular class? I used to check for friends on classmatesdotcom back when I was still teaching and there weren't ever many there. I guess it's not surprising that some of the same handful of people who showed up there are on FB, but none of my friends are among them--with the exception of my 8th grade boyfriend, whom I have no desire whatsoever to friend.

~I've been looking for one person for years--my bff from 5th-8th grades. A and I met shortly after we moved to City with a Star during the summer before 5th grade. We lived in a really friendly neighborhood, and we hadn't been there for long when my parents were invited to play bridge with a group that included A's parents, and the very next day A and I were introduced. We quickly bonded over our Barbies and our bikes, and were pretty much inseparable for the next 3 and half years, until my father was transferrred. A and I shed many, many tears over our parting, and we wrote each other long letters and visited a few times over the next couple of years, but by junior year in high school the letters tapered off and the visits ended and we lost touch.

~The last I heard about A was when my dad visited City with a Star about the time he retired. A had gotten married and was living in our old neighborhood in the house right next to her parents. But I never found out her married name, and she doesn't show up anywhere under her family name, nor does her sister or brother--not on FB, not on classmates, not in any google searches. A few years ago I drove through City with a Star and fantasized about going to the old neighborhood to see if she or any of her family was still there, but we were on our way to my parents' house for what turned out to be my dad's last Christmas, and time was short, and I couldn't really stop.

~Every time I was pregnant I dreamed about A. If Elder Son had been a girl, he would've been given A's name (a name I didn't seriously consider for any of my other kids as it gained in popularity among girls' names). A and I used to talk about how one of us would be the first woman president. Clearly that isn't going to happen, but I do wonder what she's doing--did she have kids? What kind of career does she have? Would we have stayed friends if I hadn't moved away? My mother always maintains that we wouldn't have, that we would have grown apart, that I remember our friendship through overly rose-colored glasses, but who's to say, really?

~Not too long ago NSLS found her childhood best friend, also named A online, and it's fun to see messages from her on NSLS's FB. But sometimes it does remind me of how much I'd like to reconnect with A, with other childhood friends, friends lost through years of moves and life changes. I miss having that kind of roots.