Tag Archives: Ghost

Primary Reunion

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The other day I checked in on my FB profile -the one that I don’t visit that often- and to my surprise I’d received two messages from people I haven’t seen or been in contact with for a long long long time: I’m talking primary school… I opened message one, because I was curious to read it, both messages were from different girls (or should I say women ;) ) that I used to be friends with at some point early in my life. The other message, message two, I left unopened for a while. This one was from a girl I used to be friends with from the age of seven or eight(?) until 13. To be honest I didn’t feel like opening that message as I was expecting the usual blah blah anyway. The other one was somehow more interesting to me.

She wrote me about a primary school reunion that she is organising, they’ve found everyone except me and if I was the person in the picture, that she was looking for. Of course I could’ve left it at that but I didn’t, I replied to her message. The moment I received her second message I felt some kind of regret about sending that first reply. She was asking the usual: how are you doing, what have you been up to, are you married, do you have children? etc. Of course I was expecting these kind of questions and I didn’t mind answering some of them but then I realised the moment I would make her my FB friend, more requests would come in and I’d have to answer the same unimportant nonsense again and again.

I had a look at her profile page and noticed each and every classmate from back then, in her friends list. Also the one boy I had a major crush on, I remember I went to the beach with his parents, him and his younger brother. When we arrived back at their appartment in the evening, his mum asked me to take a shower before dinner, to rinse all the sand and dirt off. It was a bit of an odd situation for me. His parents were extremely nice people, especially his mum. She braided my hair when I got out of the shower. I guess I must have been the daughter she never had ;) But just the fact that I had butterflies in my stomach whilst being around this boy all day long was something special that I remember to this day.

But I also noticed the girl -one of a pair actually- who came from a questionable family (it was rumoured at the time that her mum was a public woman). They were common people, she was friends with another girl and both lived in the same estate, were quite heavy, already used too much makeup at that age and weren’t popular. These were the type of girls you weren’t supposed to hang out with. I remember they were also quite the bullies at school, potty-mouthed and often looking for a fight. And I remember one time where they were picking on me -just out of sight- around the corner of the playground. I punched her right in the face, which she didn’t expect of course… Bullying problem solved for ever!

There are more stories of course, but does it really matter? I’ve replied to the first message and said to her that I’m not keen on reunions. The truth is that I wonder what the hell I’m supposed to tell these people who are desperately holding on to a few memories of the past. Most I can’t even remember because I was so young and so green at the time, a child. What’s the point of meeting up again after so many years knowing that I’ll probably have nothing in common with any of them. Is it their curiosity speaking? Do they expect me to add them all to FB just like that because of something we’ve shared ages ago *don’t thinks so!*? I’ve moved on, I’m not that child anymore, I’m an adult with an adult life now.

I really don’t see the point in meeting up to tell them how successful I’ve been over the past decades, how much I earn a year, how many kids I have, how many times I’ve been married and tell them by the end of the night ‘sure… we’ll keep in touch’… Something that will obviously never happen otherwise it would’ve happened already. There will be nothing to relate to. Absolutely nothing. It’s been too long. I was a child at the time still figuring out how to memorise twenty words for the test on Wednesday whilst my mind wandered off, counting down the minutes to the lunch break at noon. My bubble was small but large enough to hold everything dear to me and I still like to keep it that way, plain and simple.

The second message was from one of my closest friends at the time. She wrote about how long it has been (I know; things happen for a reason…) and how she would like to stay in touch again. She approached me because of the same reason, that reunion. Funny thing is that I will attend a reunion in June this year, only because some friends asked me to please come and yes they are still my FB friends nowadays. It’s organised by the school I attended where I studied graphic design. Yes I had doubts but this reunion seems more realistic somehow. The doubts are about the whole reunion thing in general, because I don’t feel the need to add all the extra noise to my life while I’m already juggling on a daily basis.

I guess it is a ‘to be continued…’ ;)

The Investigator

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At times I find myself lost on the digital high way going from one place to another seamlessly for hours in a row. I’ve written in my planner that I should stop doing this because what it comes down to is that I get caught up in lots of different searches thus basically ending up wasting my time. Back in the days when I did an attempt to study (seems ages ago) the professor warned the group about this. You were only allowed to search for half an hour at the most which isn’t that much even for a ‘pro’ like myself ;) Those 30 minutes are gone in a blink.

Most of the time I’m not even searching, I’d like to call it ‘investigating’ because I’ll become curious about stuff from the past and I’ll end up looking for certain people who were once part of my life. It’s a trap and I really should stop doing this because it is pointless. What’s the use of trying to find out what happened to these people? I mean they are no longer part of my life for a very good reason so why the curiosity? I have no clue what it is that drives me to do this as it isn’t even rewarding and right after I feel guilty for wasting my precious time doing this.

The other day I ended up doing this on Farcebook when I noticed a person on another person’s list of friends and from there it went downhill. I used to work in the advertising business for quite a while, most of the people I know from that period are connections on LinkedIn but not on FB. I wouldn’t want them to be connected on FB, only those who are still friends from that period are part of my FB. But it seems to be common in this country to have everyone listed on FB inlcuding your (ex) colleagues and they all pretend to be so close-knit as well.

Am I an exception? It seems that way… Anyway, I ended up looking at a profile of this attention seeker from the advertising period. She was the kind who would go only after married men or men that were spoken for. So years later whilst looking at her profile I could only come to the same conclusion: nothing had changed. She was still the same pathetic person, a very lonely attention seeking person. Sad… No one seem to be responding to her posts from the hundreds of people only three or four left a reaction each time she posted something ‘interesting’.

In this particular case I didn’t feel guilty, I felt like my gut had been right all along. I hold no grudge against her for trying it on with my partner back then, he was on to her from the start and ignored her sad advances towards him. She went from an extremely well earning production manager to a teacher at the graphic art school. The exact same school which I attended when I moved to Amsterdam to study, ages ago. So reading this made me grin actually and far from feeling guilty. That was one case, although there were a few more that made me laugh.

But overall it still feels like I’m wasting my time on investigating don’t-need-to-know-facts… And it makes me wonder why I fall in the same monkey trap over and over again. Is it a way to procrastinate from what I really should be doing? Is it curiosity? Do I need confirmation? I have yet to find the answer but I’m sure it has to do with ‘letting go’. Perhaps I’m letting go of past hurt by visiting the ones who caused it, realising they are no longer on that pedestal where I’d left them in my mind back then. They aren’t as fantastic as they want(ed) everyone to believe.

Secretly and secretively I’m smirking and I feel good about decisions I’ve made in the past and how it all turned out, how some really seem to have gotten what they’ve deserved by their actions. I’m glad I’m not part of the huge FB family they like to pretend to have. They were colleagues, I don’t feel the need to share my inner thoughts with any of them except the ones that have become close friends. They were pretending back then, keeping up appearances, so what would be different these days? Nothing, nothing has changed as far as I can see.

Perhaps I’m just getting older and I start to see things for what they really are/were. I have a lifetime of experience, a sixth sense and an extremely good gut telling me often what I should make of things. I guess I need to investigate every now and then to chuckle intensely for a few, let go of these ghosts and move on again. I don’t feel any competition anymore nor the need to prove myself to anyone like I felt I had to back then. It is what it is and it’s good. So perhaps investigating is merely about getting a confirmation of what I’ve known all along.