Time in a Bottle

Stumbling upon people’s websites or social networking pages that you know is always hilarious, sometimes shocking and at other times depressing. At times, I have been known to thoroughly background check and Google search people I know. I’m not quite sure why I engage in this behavior, other than to satisfy my own curiosity and boredom, but once you get started, once you enter that person’s name in a search engine, there is no stopping you until you’ve finished discovering every single crevice of their past and present life.  Sometimes there are people I search for from high school just because their name pops into my head out of nowhere. Being on the yearbook staff for three years will do that to you. Sometimes they don’t exist on the internet. I find that so disheartening and upsetting. Not because I don’t have any juicy dirt to read about them, oh no. But because we are in the 21st century people! How do you not have an online presence in this day and age is beyond me. There are 10-year-olds with more online presence than the now 23-year-olds I went to high school with. You people disgust me.

A couple months ago I came across information about a relative I had not spoken to for about three to four years. It wasn’t because we were both busy, or because there was any type of physical distance between us that we stopped talking. It was purely out of choice, and not really a democratic one at that, at least as far as my choice was concerned. It’s always weird seeing how someone’s life has evolved since you haven’t been around. The kids they’ve had, the conversations they’ve been a part of, the fact that you play no part in their life and they play no part in yours.

It’s easy to utter the words “forgive and forget” in situations like this, and there are always people who are going to repeat that phrase, but it’s so much harder than that.

Some days I miss her. I remember our shopping trips, the way I could confide in her, like an older sister I didn’t have, how she took me under her wing and gave me advice. I thought our relationship was so strong, that the thought of not even being on speaking terms with each other did not even once cross my mind. We were close. My dad played a big part in raising her, probably about 10 to 12 years before I even existed. She touted over me when I was an infant. Both our families located to Greece to escape Iran, and then to Los Angeles to start a new life. We lived about two minutes away from each other. I was a bridesmaid at her wedding.

Now, she has two children. They don’t know who I am, nor do I expect them to. Now, I’ve graduated, with a job and a life of my own. It would be safe to say that she no longer knows who I am. She missed out on a critical period of my life and I missed out on a critical period in hers, I suppose.

And still to this day, the details of why and how communication stopped remains a blur. All that’s left is me, where I am and she, where she is. And there’s nothing to change. Not really, anyway. I don’t even know if I want a change. I don’t. It’s just a matter of accepting. Accepting the cards you’ve been dealt, trekking on and perhaps reserving a bit of hope in the back of your head that someday, you might cross paths and actually say hello and embrace each other again.