My "past lives"

I just created a Facebook account. Cathy and Garrett have them. Lots of friends and acquaintances do. So while Facebook seems vaguely creepy to me, I wanted to know for real -- rather than just having opinions in ignorance.

So, having just opened this account, I've been digging back through my past and looking for people that I've known whom I could befriend. In doing this (as some of you may have seen) I've written notes about gathering friends from my "past lives." An old friend, Tim, asked about that wording. And thinking about it, I decided to catalog them. I'm calling the "lives" blocks here.

My life prior to moving to Missouri (1970-79) is basically one block. The only people I might connect with from this time are family. I'd kind of like to find my two cousins and catch up a bit.

I think the next block is something like 1979-1984. During this time, I lived in Webster Groves, MO. I went to school for one year at Clark and then 3.5 years at Classical Junior Academy in St. Louis and half a year back at Hixson. And I loitered at The Shire and The Dragon's Lair quite a bit. There are people from CJA that I'd like to contact. Tim was the son of my dad's coworker and also a fellow Dragon's Lair orphan. I found him. Shawn, Mark, Steve and Mike are peers from this time also -- we also became acquainted around gaming at The 'Lair and I found all of them on Facebook right away. I suppose Paul deserves some mention here too. I met him in the same way, but I really think of him as being later in my life since we weren't yet BFFs (God, shoot me now).

High School (1985-88) must be the next block. I'm not sure who I'd want to talk to from this time. I was friends with the people from the previous block through this time also and most of the people I knew otherwise from HS were pretty casually acquainted. I bet that's not true for most folks...weird. I guess Josh would count from this block even though I knew him from Shawn, not HS (at first) -- I should look for him. And maybe Dawn. And Melanie.

1989-90 were my lost years. I dropped out of college, had like eight jobs and failed to take my community college load seriously. I think I hung out mostly with Paul and Josh and Inkpen as I drifted away or had falling outs with Shawn and Mike and Steve...and hey, Doug...is he around? Oh and MarkS... I did meet Bill during this time, so that was good.

90-91 were spent in Chicagoland living with Inkpen and Mike and Bill. I found Inkpen on Facebook and Jay -- but she hasn't responded yet to my friend request. No Keith, but I'm not sure of his spelling.

In 91 I moved to Columbia to go to school and stayed there until 99. I guess that's all one block. So that time could include ErikJ, a roommate. And coworkers from the Labs. And theoretically my employees at the labs, later. And my wife. :) And Teresa and Beth and David (who fit into the coworkers category). But also, Edmund and Aaron and James and Charles and Avril and Tim and Tim and ... who am I forgetting? Maybe Cathy's family since I got married during that time. I suppose I should count Garrett in that time though he seems to transcend these blocks in some ways. I guess this was also our first Gathering, so Bruce and maybe others would fit there, or maybe the next block.

My next block is the time lived in New Jersey -- 1999-2004. I worked at BMS -- I'd like to find Mark and Rui, maybe Jim and Bill and John. Who else? And we gamed at The 'Realm. Larry, Diane, Nick, Rob, etc.

And since 2004, we've been in Minnesota. So I have a few coworkers here. And my indie-MN group maybe, though I haven't searched for them yet. I have some online friends from this time too. I have to think about how to process them.

It's interesting, to me at least, that it was totally subconscious to allocate blocks, not only based on where I lived, but on who I was friends with and what I was doing.