In which I revisit the past and ramble.

I am 9 in that photo - 23 years has passed.

Social networking has made our past lives much more accessible. Our past is thrown out on Facebook by friends, family and those who are now complete strangers.

I can look at these photos and tell you who almost every single person is... not because I have an amazing memory but because, collectively, people have added their names or those of friends to the tags and we have a full class list -twenty years on.

We know more about each other than we would have without social networking. My graduating class was small - less than one hundred. I don't think we've had any reunions like other year groups in the past.

Not because we are indifferent but rather because we are scattered across the globe.  A few are still in our home town, others are in various centres across South Africa, across the UK, Germany, USA, Australia, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates and Africa.

I wouldn't have known this if it weren't for Facebook.

I wouldn't have reconnected with old friends with such ease with out the internet and Facebook. I am terrible at writing letters and can never think of interesting things to write about. I think I can honestly say I would have kept in touch with five or six of my classmates had we graduated a decade earlier.

Can you spot Stud1 and I? That's the year we met.

I wouldn't know that we have doctors of medicine, biochemistry, biology and law, engineers of all persuasions, teachers, graphic artists, office workers, accountants, sales people, IT professionals, business owners,  estate agents and musicians among our number. I wouldn't know which high school sweethearts are still together and who got knocked up straight out of high school. I wouldn't know that sometimes karma is a bitch and people get what they deserve.

I wouldn't have met up with my friends around the world, without the FB connection. I wouldn't know about their gorgeous kids, see the weddings I couldn't make it to or console them after a break up or a long night with a new born...

God I hated those tights...

But it sometimes strikes me that I am expected to fill the role I had in these pictures. The one I am no longer perfectly cast for. I am louder, I am stronger, I am more confident and I have lived a life more varied than the one I pictured for myself.

That there is the temptation to revisit people who belong in the past. That the what-ifs and whys should remain unanswered. I can relive the moments I am proudest of and those I wish I could forget.

That I expect to have the same relationship with them without thought of the years between. Luckily some friendships are easily picked up and it's as if a decade hasn't gone by, and I am blessed to have those.

credit

And others are best left to the past.

I wonder if there is solace to be found in facing your tormentors, seeing the life you could have lived if you had stayed with your first love, or if something had eventuated with Mr X. A cathartic reassurance that your life choices were the ones worth making?