face to face

So I finally joined in the Facebook family. I am was not a social network kind of person (says the girl who is writting this blog).
I know all of you must be on Facebook already and what I'm going to write here will probably remind you of when you first became "friends" again with your oldest friends. 
Maybe it is because I just turned 38, but for me, it was a bit of a shock to see the recent pictures of some of my childhood friends, to say the least. What the f*ck?! They look so much like... grown-ups...
Last night I spent more than an hour chatting on Facebook with my very first boyfriend. I was 12. He was around 13-14. He was a graffiti artist then, and still is. When he showed me a picture of him now, with his son who is around the same age as my daughter, I felt a great relief: he looks just like I would have imagined. Finally someone who I can relate to! It was quite amazing to talk with him and to hear about his life and what's been going on for him.

This Facebook revival made me think a lot. It's like each time a new old friend shows up, a part of me that was deeply burried shows up, revealing to me that, contrary to what I believed, I am still the same, and in a way, they all are, too.
Marina, Sandra, David, Nathalie... At first I almost hated them for being so physically different. How dare they show me how much older we are?! And then, quickly, my vision changed, and I started loving them again for being there, no matter how different from each other we have grown, no matter their lives and surroundings. Some of them have posted school pictures and there I am, with my turquoise Converse shoes and my hair straighter and blonder than it is now. As I look at myself, over 25 years ago, I can see that I am the same: bold and shy, a big mouth with a secret heart, rough and sweet, a dreamer, tough and fragile, light and dark, happy and angry. I was a child with an urgent desire to become an adult. 
Lately I have been feeling that I am nowhere near who I thought I would become at this point in my life - I was wrong. I think I am just who I've always been.