Single file....

I am a statistic. Now, I don't generally think of myself that way, and if you want to get really picky, we are all statistics of one sort or another, I suppose.

But in this case, the statistic that I want to talk about is the fact that I am a single, forty something woman. Which, if you believe the male half of the species, means that I am as likely to claim one of them for my own as to get hit by lightning. In other words, it could happen, but it's not likely.

Although, come to think of it, if you do get hit by lightning, you usually die. Or at least you are pretty messed up. So perhaps it's not such a bad comparison, after all....

Anyway, I have always assumed that the getting-hit-by-lightning study was designed and executed by men. Who, as usual, did not listen to a thing she said.

Because, well, I'm going to be honest with you here, [men, listen up, this is important information] - every single woman over 35 is not waiting for you to come and save her from her desolate fate. Some women are even, {gasp,} happy to be free of the constraints of A Relationship. In fact, several studies have now shown that while married men live longer than single men, married women die sooner, and it is the single women who live longest of all. I could have told them that without spending a dime.

I know this borders on sedition, bringing this information out into the open, but I have always liked living on the edge.

I would be one of those women who is happily, cheerfully single. I enjoy the freedom of not having to share my closet and my bathroom. The only crumb to be found in my bed these days is food related. I am content not to be caught in the tangled web of emotional connectedness with someone whose every waking thought, not to mention the sleeping ones, comes from below the belt.

I've never liked spiders. And I don't think much of flies, either.

Why do I even bring this up? I have recently become aware of an interesting phenomenon, and I feel it's important to set the record straight, not just for me, but for women everywhere. Because I'm not sure where men are getting their information, but it's flawed, seriously flawed, and I feel its important to clear up the misunderstanding for everyone's sake.

Single women, even if we are over 40, are not necessarily waiting to become the satellite revolving around the sun of someone else's universe. If we notice you, it may be because your fly is open or you have food on your chin.

Some background on my own perspective is needed here, so you have some context for my resentment. Way back when I was 20 something, I was happily average in every way. I wasn't hideous, I suppose, but I wasn't beautiful, either. While I was smart enough, I didn't expose my thought processes to much rigor. I didn't have money, and I drove a little brown hatchback Pinto, so I was not exuding class and distinction. I was, in a word, nothing special.

However, like most sweet young things, I received my share of attention from the male half of the species. Some of the attention I received was unwanted, but I realized it went with being a 20 something, it wasn't about me personally, and would eventually dry up and blow away.

I got married, had children, aged 20 years, and suddenly, I'm 40 something and single again. In the process, I have learned something fascinating. Apparently that wedding ring is not only around your finger. Evidently, it surrounds your life, too, like a protective cloak of invisibility.

And that's where this story actually begins. Because it seems, against all reason, now that I'm single again, I still attract the unwanted attentions of strange men, who continue to misunderstand their role in my life. Which is, in short, that they don't have one.

The realization that my life has become a bad sitcom dawned very slowly for me. I may not have noticed it at all, in fact, except that my lovely daughter, who is exceptionally observant, thoughtfully pointed it out.

For example, one evening, I was backing out of a parking place at a local emporium when she said, in an exasperated voice, "Mom, that guy did everything but stand on his head to get your attention, and you walked past him as if he wasn't even there." To which I replied, "What guy?"

We both turned to look out the window, and sure enough, he was still standing there, looking at the receding car with a wistful look on his face, as if it were a large rainbow trout that had gotten away. Well. That was a facer.

I love the British. They have such a fun way with words. According to Merriam Webster, for those who do not get out enough and are using my blog as a vocabulary lesson, a facer is a sudden stunning check or obstacle. Check and mate on that one, then.

Getting back to the story....

My daughter was, in fact, annoyed with me for being rude to some poor stranger we didn't even know. I, on the other hand, was annoyed with him for even thinking I should notice him in the first place.

In any event, I figured it was a one-off event, desperate guy, maybe just divorced and doesn't know how to cook, grasping at any straw in the bale of life's hay, I had his whole sad story mapped out in my head before I turned the corner for home, and didn't think much more about it. At least until the next time it happened. And happened again. And again. And again.

[I realize this sounds conceited, and I can only promise you that I am, of all human beings under the sun, the least likely to consider myself anything special. I am, after all, a Minnesota Lutheran to the core. Thus, my mantra is never, ever to draw attention to myself, and for heaven's sake, never monkey around At All, because that will bring God himself, and your embarrassed family, right down on you. But this is just too good to keep to myself, so I am going to run the risk of eternal damnation for my conceit and forge ahead, in the hopes that the tears from the laughter will put out the hellfire I feel singeing my feet.]

Naturally, I cast around for possible reasons why this unfortunate situation has developed. Obviously, I immediately eliminated my witty [some would say stunning] personality as the driving force. These men do not even know me. [Actually, the people that do know me don't pay any attention to me at all, which tells you something.]

I am not more attractive, now that I am mature. [That sounds so much nicer than getting old, don't you think?] I have no money, and I still have not developed any class or distinction.

That is when I realized, it has nothing to do with me at all, and everything, but everything, to do with the fact that I am Mrs. Robinson come to life. Men have confused "The Graduate" with reality. Or maybe they have grown up with the idea that a wicked divorcee is simply awaiting their entrance into her life to be complete, and they are acting on this misinformation to their detriment.

Ladies, if you want to test my theory, try taking off your wedding ring and go to the grocery store. I'll guarantee you some guy will offer to take your groceries home for you. Yes, that actually happened. I could not make this stuff up. My imagination is not that good.

Some men have found creative ways to get the attention of every single woman they stumble over. And the older they get, the more desperate the measures they seem to take. They do get my attention, I will give them that, although perhaps not quite in the way they were hoping for. But they are good for a laugh, if not for a date.

I go for a walk most evenings with my dog and my i-Pod, headphones blasting in my ears, oblivious to everything, just the way all the safety experts tell you not to. [Sorry Mom.]

As I was walking along, probably belting out whatever song was playing, I realized a pickup truck, all black and shiny, which had just passed me, turned around in the street and pulled up next to me. While not a common occurrence, it's not unheard of, and I glanced up but kept walking until I saw the window smoothly sliding downward.

Then I saw a head, leaning towards the passenger side of the seat, looking at me earnestly, lips moving rapidly. I tried to think if this face was familiar, but couldn't place it, and then realized that the lips seemed to be forming words that I could understand. I simply could not believe that he had just said what I thought he said, so I pulled out my headphones, and in my best Mom Voice [he had to be at least ten years younger than me,] coldly said, "Excuse me?"

And then, he said it again, in all its humiliating glory. "Hey. You're cute. Do you want to go out with me?" [I must make an editorial remark here, for those who have heard this story before. I have had to modify the language, because my mother reads this blog, and I don't want her to wash my mouth out with soap for talking like that.]

I must say, I was nonplussed. I am mature [getting old.] I may have been old enough to be his much older sister. Since I was out for a walk in the heat with my dog, I had made no effort on my appearance whatsoever. I couldn't think of anything about me that would get the attention of some random guy driving by, much less make him think I would be receptive to that kind of invitation.

This situation obviously called for the right response, which I struggled to come up with, being I never foresaw this eventuality occurring in the first place. So, I paused for a long moment, while gathering my wits about me, and then replied, "I am 48 years old, which means I am old enough to know better than to go out with you."

Too slowly, the window went sliding back up, and I put my headphones back in and walked away, leaving him to consider his sins, which, given the situation he had just created, probably took awhile.

Of course, this is far too good of a story to keep to myself. I don't have any illusions that I will have this kind of humor opportunity too many more times in my life, so I have told it to pretty much everyone I know. Actually, now I've told a whole lot of people that I don't know, too. I try to spread my humor around as much as possible. It's my gift to the world. You bet.

The most surprising thing about the whole episode, though, is not that he did it, shocking as it was to me. The thing that always amazes me is that men of my acquaintance, upon hearing this story, are not only not shocked, they usually agree that while most women won't go for it, if even one in ten does, that makes the effort worthwhile.

Men aren't from Mars, they are from the outer edges of the universe. Ladies, we have set the bar way too low.

That was my best "single woman" story until recently, when another episode took it's place. My new best story is about a special guy I'll call John Doe, to protect him from the humiliation, since I think he is probably basically a decent guy, if a little too desperate.

I got connected with him through work. I sell insurance, and he evidently confused that with a dating service. It was impossible to mistake his intentions, even at the very beginning, but he seemed harmless enough, so I played along, hoping at some point to benefit from the time spent with an actual policy. Eventually, however, he crossed a line and went a little too far, so I decided enough was enough, and took some measures that I thought would end the nonsense.

John was not to be deterred so easily. He e-mailed me back, asking for another quote, which I debated, but eventually decided to do, since I'd spent so much time on it already. I sent him an e-mail in my most business-like tone, explaining that I have changed my last name, but not giving any further information as to why, and received a reply that confirmed that men and women think on totally different planes.

I dissolved in laughter when his sincere congratulations on my new marriage appeared in my inbox.

The dating game has certainly changed since I was young. Even at my age, I find myself at center stage, instead of watching from the wings. It seems, at least from the single men I know, that men are now the ones who want to get married and live in domestic bliss, while the women are out of reach, uninterested in the fetters of relationship and commitment.

I'm not sure when the change occurred, but I, for one, am in favor of it. If you are going to have your life shortened by marrying some guy and making his dreams come true, you should, at the very least, have some laughs first.

In the meantime, I will continue to wait for Mr. Perfectly Right to walk through my door and fall in my lap. I don't know if he's out there, but I sure hope he isn't driving a black truck.

Last week was huge for me. A once in a lifetime event occurred, and I am still trying to get over it. No, I am not referring to the dreaded birthday, which came and went, and apparently is not as big of a deal as I had feared, since I'm still here to tell about it, and don't actually look or feel all that much different.

Surprise.

No, this once in a lifetime event to which I am referring is a truly special occasion - frequently contemplated, often discussed, but occurring about as often as a full eclipse of the sun. Last weekend my cousin came to visit, and since she has never been to my house before, I wanted to let her know I cared.

So I revved my motor, shouted at everyone in range, and got my entire house, top to bottom, more or less clean - All At the Same Time. [No need to hold your applause. I thrive on positive attention. Very un-Lutheran of me, I know. But I haven't lived in the Land of the Lutherans for awhile, and I am busily trying to fit into the Land of Oz, where I currently reside.]

I realize this may not sound like much of an achievement to the uninitiated Martha Stewart wannbees out there. So let me just pause for a moment to explain the significance of this event. I am thoughtful that way - I don't want to leave anyone behind. [Well, that and I want full appreciation for the achievement.]

I am not a housekeeper. I do not get chills from seeing a freshly vacuumed carpet, all the little marks neatly lined up in a row. I don't get a thrill from looking at a clean counter or table top, although I am often exasperated that I can never find anything in this place, and can find no room to work. Anywhere in the entire house, because every available space seems to be covered with stuff. Laundry is anathema to me, and while I do manage to run the dishwasher occasionally, it is not enjoyable to put the clean dishes away, either.

I used to have a decorative wall hanging, given to me by a well intentioned relative many years ago. [Might have had something to do with an ill fated marital decision, but I'm not telling.] Anyway, it talked about being happy to serve in the kitchen, because that meant there was food on the table, and happy to do the laundry, because that meant there were clothes to wear, and happy to sweep the floor, because that meant there was a home to live in.

Oh-kay. I am thrilled about the food, the clothes, the home. I still hate to do housework. [That wall hanging has since gone the way of the marriage it was intended to enrich, by the way. I hate to have lies hanging around the house, showing me up for a hypocrite.]

Housework, from my point of view, is boring, mundane, and never ending. I vacuumed two days ago, but I have two dogs, a cat, and a bird, not to mention a kid or two. Need I say more?

Wash clothes, and then you have to fold or hang and put them away. I get bored just thinking about it.

Dust, if you don't mess with it, will just lay there in a nice layer, not hurting anyone. It's only when some spoil sport runs their finger over it that everyone notices your table top is not, in fact, opaque. Hmmmm.

So anyway, I wanted my cousin to come back some day, so I thought I had better make the premises a little less scary. So I whipped my daughter into action by laying down the law. Which, in my case, means plaintively pleading with her to please, please, please pick up her stuff and put it somewhere it won't be visible. And then, in a masterly wave of action, I got busy and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned.

My house was a showcase, at least for a few fleeting moments, and I was reminded why I liked this place way back in the beginning. The layout is very open and free flowing, and it feels airy and light and welcoming. At least as long as there isn't so much stuff you can't walk through it without falling over something.

That's when the momentous realization dawned on me. It's not that I'm lazy, or even that the house is too big for two people [which it is.]

No, the real problem here is that we have too much stuff. WAY too much stuff. We have enough stuff to furnish several houses, and a random apartment or two. I don't know where all this stuff came from, because I am not a pack rat. I am not afraid to throw or donate. And yet, I have entire house filled with stuff, most of which I don't even know I have, and which I will probably never use again.

I have baking dishes in my kitchen that have never seen the light of day, or the oven. I have fancy utensils, ghosts of Pampered Chef parties past, that have never been taken out of their packaging, still pristine in their unused state. I have newspapers commemorating everything from the Pope getting shot a few years back [we don't need to dwell on how many,] to the Minnesota Twins winning the World Series [yes, I DO have a homer hanky, thank you very much for asking.] I have samples of my children's schoolwork going back to preschool. [My youngest is a senior in high school, and the stack is probably higher than she is tall, so that should give you the correct visual image.]

I have a storage room full of discarded pieces of furniture I no longer need, but can't really bear to part with, because they still have some use in them. I can't throw away a book, that is a mortal sin, in my world, but I have plenty of them that will never have their cover cracked again, either.

Now, I don't want lay blame on anyone in particular for this situation, which is frighteningly close to disaster proportions.

I'm sure that it couldn't have anything to do with a childhood spent observing a parent of the female persuasion obsessively squirreling away every obscure item in her domain in a jar or a drawer or on a shelf, because you never know when you might need it.

I can't imagine that my farm upbringing, where you made do, reused, and recycled everything as a matter of course, could have brought about this inability to monitor my own possessiveness.

No, good Lutheran that I am, I'm not interested in blame at all. I am all about grace, and moving past the disaster, so I can emerge on the other side a better person. I am going to forgive myself, and anyone else who may have contributed to this situation. [Notice how I did not name any names, that's the sweet and generous kind of daughter I am.] And then I'm going to wipe the slate clean.

Just as soon as I find it. Which, given the condition of the storage room, is going to be awhile.

Then I'm going to use it to make a list of all the stuff I don't need any more, so I can once again have a house that doesn't make me cringe every time someone comes to the door. I have tasted the elixir of cleanliness, and I'm not going back to the prison of materialism. Give me liberty or give me... well. That might be going a little far.

Until then, if you need anything, call me. I'm pretty sure I have it somewhere, and I'd love to give it to you.

I have an unhappy moment arriving this week. It is a day I have been dreading for several months [years] already, but it has arrived despite my best efforts to ignore it. I'm depressed to announce that I am about to turn 49, and my journey through the 40's is ending all too soon.

When taken in their entirety, the 40's have not been fabulous for me. Born in 1960, my 40th birthday was celebrated with the turn of the millennium. As I toasted the beginning of the fifth decade of my life, I had no idea what was ahead. I'm not talking about the colon blowing up, or the divorce, or my son graduating from high school and surviving without me overseeing his every moment.

All those things happened in this decade, and I was unprepared for any of it, it's true. But I have coped, more or less, and not only accept my life now for what it is, but I'm happy and at peace for the first time in many years. Life is, by and large, pretty good for me, [except, as my children will be the first to point out, for the whole being broke thing. :( ]

No, the part of being 40 that no one warned me about, and I must say, I would have appreciated some notice, is the part that I find hardest to take - you Fall Apart. The name of this malady to which I refer? Over-40 Syndrome. Boys and girls, I am not joshing about this. When people tell you that once you hit 40 it's a downhill slide from there, they are not kidding. I would call it more of a freefall, but without the compensating thrills.

It starts small, with little changes that are so subtle, at first you don't even realize what is happening. You can't drink caffeine after 5, then 4, then 3, then breakfast. Sudafed becomes Vivarin, and you will be an insomniac if you take it after noon.

Your memory is not what it used to be, especially when trying to recall things like why you walked all the way upstairs, or what you were looking for in the garage. Or correctly identifying the kid you need to yell at. [Some days I'm lucky I remember my own name, to say nothing of them.]

Your body parts begin to play this bizarre game of hide and seek, where they aren't where you left them. Suddenly, the clothes that looked good yesterday now simply accentuate what has moved south. Or out. (For the younger set who are deluding themselves that diminutive mammaries will not so suffer, I have a flash for you. Who knew what you thought you didn't have could suddenly show up in the wrong place?)

As you move through the 40's, the problems get more pronounced. My joints and muscles and bones are almost 49 years old, too, and they want me to know it, Every Single Time I Move. If I do any little activity out of the ordinary, suddenly I am a mass of aches and pains in places I didn't know about before. (And frankly, if I didn't need to know about them previously, I'm not thinking I need to have anything to do with them now, either.)

Worst of all, though, your vision, which once worked so flawlessly you never thought about it, goes downhill rapidly until you are incapable of sight except in extreme lighting conditions. For awhile there I thought that light bulbs were getting dimmer, but it turns out that the low lighting is in my eyes, not the lamps.

I understand that I am not alone in this wellspring of misery. I have heard (and seen) my friends struggling with the same realities, and they appear to be as confused about it as I am.

We go out to lunch once a month, a group of friends, and suddenly, glasses are being passed around because no one can read the menu any more. We have serious, and intense, discussions about which are better, reading glasses or bifocals. And some of us have passionate opinions on the topic, for heaven's sake.

I don't know about men, because I missed out on the whole growing old together thing[which may not be so bad after all - it's bad enough watching myself fall apart, I'm not sure I really need to do it in stereo,] but women usually realize they have reached a Certain Age when they look in the mirror and find their mother staring back at them with a shocked expression. From what I have heard, that is a bad moment for most women. I have escaped that particular vision due to being adopted; instead, I look in the mirror and think, who the heck IS that, and what has she done with my face?

It is an odd juxtaposition, to feel 25 inside, and look 50 on the outside. I am still gobsmacked every single time I look in the mirror and find the older me looking back.

I was surprised, when I expressed my dismay to my own mother, who is a truly lovely 82, to be informed that she still feels 50. It was disconcerting, I must say, to realize that at some point in the way distant future [okay, that is also a delusion, but I am okay with it, so leave me alone,] I would actually look back on 49 as the time when I was still young. Because from my angle, it is looking positively geriatric, and I simply do not understand how I got here so soon.

I realize, given that I have a 24 year old son, feeling 25 is probably a stretch, and I may need to bump that up to 30 soon. My baby will turn 18 on her next birthday, and I do understand, intellectually, that has to mean that I can't be as young as I used to be. But I don't understand how 49 arrived so soon, so unexpectedly. I am now one step away from being 50, when you can't avoid being classed as middle aged, no matter how hard you work to maintain the youthful illusion.

I am hoping that, like with most things, the dreading of it is worse than the actual fact, and once it happens, I will be comfortable for awhile again being a young 50, instead of an old 40. I hope that when 50 actually happens, it will be a fun and fabulous decade, filled with the good things of life.

But in the meantime, I am going to hang on to 48 until the last possible second. And when 49 arrives, I will be 49 forever, at least in my mind, until the calendar turns my page for me in 2010. If I could make a visit to the Wizard of Oz, I would ask to turn the clock back and be 30 again [see, I'm making progress already.] In the meantime, I will click my heels together three times, start shopping for my red hat, and show the world that 49 can be fabulous instead of frightening.

Yikes.

Evolution....

Back when I was young, we graduated from high school and went off to college, and gradually lost touch with most everyone we had known and gone to school with our entire lives. (Keep in mind I grew up in a small town where everyone knew everyone. And everyone's parents, and grandparents, and cousins....)

It wasn't intentional or willful, or even desirable, necessarily. There was no easy way to contact them and remain in conversation with them - phone calls were long distance and expensive, and letters took too long - and it just sort of happened.

Even remaining in the same small town didn't guarantee maintaining those old friendships, because other people moved away, and, well, life evolves. You would occasionally hear about people from your parents, of course, or have the happy moment of running into them when one or both of you were home visiting, and you could catch up briefly, and it was really fun.

But gradually, in the normal course of living your life, you would lose touch with most people until you realized, one day, that you no longer thought of this or that person as a "friend," in the current sense of the word. Instead, they were now someone you knew "when I was in high school." You remembered them fondly, but it would have been awkward to just write a letter or call them out of the blue, and that was another mild regret to add to the ever lengthening list.

That was something that went along with growing up, and living your adult life. I barely see my neighbor and close friend who lives across the street, much less someone living hundreds of miles away. For most of my life, it was just the way things were, and there wasn't much you could do about it.

My son and I had a conversation on that very topic awhile ago that has now come back to haunt me, but in a good way. As a member of the Millennial generation, he has never known a time when there weren't computers and e-mail. Cell phones were not science fiction, a la Maxwell Smart or James Bond or Batman, but an everyday reality for most of his life. He was an early user of Facebook, back in the day when it was limited to college students only, and it's main intent was to help kids connect with other kids who were attending their same institution of higher learning.

He is not suspicious, like I am, of every new technological advancement. He takes advantage of anything that makes his day easier or which he perceives to enhance the quality of his life, and he embraces technology with enthusiasm for all the benefits it brings to his life. He immediately understood the advantages of a Facebook world, and as I said, he was one of the first people to sign on, before he even arrived on his college campus.

Anyway, on this particular day that I mentioned, we were discussing "real friends" versus "Facebook friends," a term which has instant meaning for anyone who has been on Facebook for any length of time at all. I will explain [as briefly as is possible for me] for those who haven't heard the term, and don't understand what it means.

Most people have friends they know well, whom they see regularly, or at least with whom they remain in regular contact, just as people have done since time began.

They also have acquaintances that are encountered in church, at school, at work, or wherever people congregate. You don't really know them well, you wouldn't call them to go to a movie or meet for a cup of coffee, but you know enough about them to at least say hello and have a conversation with them when you see them out and about.

Now, in this computer age, there is another set of people with whom friendship is primarily found in cyberspace, and it's a weird sort of relationship, indeed. You may know more about them than you do about your next door neighbor, because Facebook keeps you up to date on everything they are doing (to say nothing about Twitter, but let's not even go there.) Every time they post a picture or update their profile or simply have a thought, you are notified by the server on the mothership in the cyberspace universe, but you may not recognize them if you run into them on the street or in a store.

While you are generally connected to your real friends on Facebook, you can now add everyone that knows everyone you've ever known, and the people who know them, as well. Friends of friends will suddenly friend you, and before you know it, you have over a thousand Facebook friends (my socially adept daughter, for example,) made up mostly of people you've never met.

[On the one hand, it's sort of creepy to know that your best friend's cousin's girlfriend's brother is on an extended visit to Peru. But it's also sort of hard to resist looking at the pictures that he posts from his cell phone each evening, too.]

It seems kind of weird to me, this accumulation of names and people that have no genuine connection with you, other than as a number in your list of competitive friending. It was that phenomenon which got the conversation with my son going, but we quickly expanded beyond that to discuss how he has kept in touch with high school classmates and never really lost those relationships, although they have, as expected, evolved.

His most persuasive argument for this type of social networking was simple and compelling; why lose touch with people when you don't have to? And what is the harm in remaining friends, he pointed out, even if only Facebook friends, with someone whom you haven't seen in a long time, and with whom you may not have a lot in common now, but who had shared the experience of growing up with you? Since I didn't really have a counterpoint to that very logical and reasonable position, the conversation ended with my feeling slightly dissatisfied about having been on the wrong side of an argument that should have been obvious, since I have lost far more friends than he has over the years!

This conversation has come back to haunt me in the last few days, as I said before, in the best possible way. I have suddenly reconnected, all in the last week, and thanks to the internet and Facebook, with several people with whom I shared my growing up years, and it has been the most fun I have had in a long time. To catch up and talk with people whom I knew, and who knew me, when we were five or ten or 15 is even more fun that I would have imagined. Not surprisingly, it turns out we are avidly interested in what each other's lives look like now, and very happy to suddenly have a way to find out again.

I have never attended a class reunion, I never understood the desire before, but suddenly, I am having the class reunion anyway, without ever leaving my sofa. I am annoyed to find out that my mother was right again; it is a lot of fun to catch up and see, not only how all those people turned out, but how varied and interesting they all are. All those sullen and hormonal teenagers, (myself more than anyone, I'm sure!) suddenly revere their parents, have serious careers, have gotten married or divorced (or both,) have difficulties with their children, and actually make plans with the siblings they couldn't stand when we were young. Who knew?!

One of the reconnections for me came through a roundabout path. A woman, Patrea (isn't that a lovely and unique name?!) that went to elementary school with me, and who attended my church until her family moved when we were about ten, was traveling through my hometown, and actually remembered me from way back when. [Trust me, I am far more shocked than anyone at that.]

She asked someone at my little country church to pass her e-mail along to me. It traveled from there to my mom, who then passed it along to me, and eventually, when I found a few free minutes, I sent off the first attempt to reconnect.

I was nervous, sort of like a first date with someone you have heard about, but don't really know. I didn't know what to say about myself, or my life, because I didn't know if she would be interested or not, so it was an awkward attempt, to say the least.

A few days later, I received a wonderful and enthusiastic reply, with the tale of her life in brief, and the wish that we would now stay in touch. I replied with a longer and more forthcoming story of my life, and am now awaiting her reply with happy anticipation. Without e-mail, this would never have happened, and we would have missed out on something that has brought me, at least, pleasure I didn't even know I would feel.

I have a cousin, Mary, who is very socially engaging. Her laugh is irresistible, and she is a warm and caring person. So it's pretty obvious why everyone wants to be her friend!

Hearing from Pat made me start to wonder about other people I had been friends with growing up, and naturally, I turned to Mary's Facebook page. [Yes, that's correct, I continue to be the little cousin dogging everyone's heels!] As it turns out, she is, not surprisingly, ridiculously talented at locating people online, and I raided her friend list to find a few for myself. Mary has obviously been very busy rounding people up, because she has pretty much everyone I've ever known in her list of friends, and I have been slowly but surely adding them myself.

It turns out her younger brother, my cousin Tom, was on Facebook, so I was able to wish him a happy birthday, something I haven't done in years, despite always thinking of him on that day, because all it required of me was a simple click. From there, someone else found me and friended me, and we have now had a fun and interesting conversation.

I found another girl I knew my entire life, and whom I have missed over the years, but never thought to contact, because it was just too complicated. Suddenly, we are writing back and forth, comparing notes on life, and divorce, and our kids, and it is not only fun, but rewarding to find that no matter how far we have come, those people you cared about so much growing up, and who cared about you, still do. It is like discovering your long lost relatives, in a way, and it is very gratifying.

I am, as most people who know me well will attest, a pretty confirmed introvert. As anyone who reads this blog regularly knows, I am cynical and jaded by a life that has had more bumps and scrapes and bruises than it should have, mostly self-inflicted, and I find it difficult to trust and make friends with people.

So for me, this is a different kind of experience. Not only do I not need to explain where I come from, or who I really am, they already know the most important things about me, because they were all there while they were happening. That small town farm girl still lives in me, and that is someone they already know.

While there are certainly some dangers involved in the internet, including identity theft, online stalking, and that whole creepy Googling-pictures-of-my-house-where-you-can-see-my-furniture-on-my-deck thing, the benefits have always outweighed the risks for me. I understand the attitude of the young, who regret the parental intrusions into their formerly out-of-reach online world. But now that even my 82 year old mother has a facebook page, it is evident that Facebook is here to stay, and it is a good thing.

[Brief update: My lovely mother decided it was just too complicated, and had me delete her page!]

If you haven't gotten yourself a Facebook page, I encourage you to go online and get one. At best, you will find out who you didn't even know you were missing until you find them, or they find you. At the least, you will find yourself more in touch with the people who matter most to you. Evolution in the computer age simply means adding to your list of friends, and it's a lot of fun.

Happy hunting!

Lion, lamb or something in between?

This week saw the death from a brain tumor of a man both loved and hated, reviled and idolized, an integral part of what is, perhaps, the only true American family dynasty, and yet, very much a human being. For all that has been said about him over the years, the part of Edward Kennedy that has always struck me was his humanity.

I don't know what he was like up close and personal, of course. I suspect, like most famous politicians, he thought well of himself. Humility is not the first thing that comes to mind, when looking for adjectives with which to describe the man called the "Lion of the Senate." But that sort of seems to go with the territory, no matter what your political persuasion may be.

His family, who still call him Teddy, clearly saw the softer, gentler side of the private man. His legion of friends cannot be all for show - I have to think he must have been, for the most part, a fairly decent person, as politicians go, in his day to day conduct and relationships.

Why does Ted Kennedy even matter, to someone like me, one of the little people of the world? I think he matters because, although he lived large, his world view was, more than most people born to wealth and power and prestige and fame, sort of like mine. Perception, perhaps, but life is all about perceptions, and I think that perception is the reason so many people voted for him for so many years, and now mourn his passing. His ability to connect was rooted in his humanity, and I think that will be his longest legacy.

Two things stand out for me to make Ted Kennedy more human than most, however, with the flaws and the virtues showing in almost equal measure.

The greatest flaw, of course, came in the death of a young woman at his hands. Regardless of the facts in the situation, which no one but Ted will ever really know on this earth, he did not do the right thing that night. The true measure of a person is in how they handle adversity, and Ted Kennedy failed that test, when, as a young man, he ran away from an accident of his making, leaving a young woman to certain death.

His apology to the nation, and his constituents, was inadequate, more of a dissembling than an explanation of what happened, of how he could have done the things he did that night. Although the events of that night in Chappaquiddick hung over his head, and his career, for the remainder of his life, I believe he salvaged a political career that would not have survived had he been anyone else in the nation, based on sympathy for a family that had suffered and lost much, and a name that meant everything in the 1960's in Massachusetts. It isn't right, and her family did not receive justice in this case, because they never got the answers they deserved.

But life isn't fair, and I believe in grace and redemption. Thus, I think the other measure of character is how you conduct yourself ever after.

Whether I agreed with him or not on a particular issue, he passed that test, in my mind. More than almost any other politician I can think of, he championed, through all the years in his political career, the needs of the common man, with whom he seemed to feel aligned, regardless of his family name and wealth. While there was some political self-service in that, I believe that, for his faults, Ted Kennedy really did believe in the rights of the regular guy, and that his self-identification was based on what he felt in his heart.

Although I have frequently disagreed with this most liberal of senators, I am less cynical about his motives than I might be, because he carried it through his entire life's work, from the beginning to the end. His assault against the status of health care in this nation, for example, was not the beginning of his quest - he was no Johnny come lately to that battle. It was the culmination of his lifetime of work, a cause that he had fought for over many years, and several presidencies.

It is particularly ironic that he chose health care as the issue of his heart, given that virtually his entire adult life was spent utilizing the Cadillac of health care systems, set up by the US Congress for their own members. The one part of the health care reform movement that really appeals to me is that everyone, including the president and the Congress, has to live under the same system they devise for the rest of us.

I don't know if Kennedy favored that idea, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out he, of all the people in Washington, did. [Of course, I realize it is not the big conundrum for him that it would be for the rest of us, since he has enough money to buy any health care he wants. But I don't think that takes anything away from the fact that he was trying to meet the needs of those less fortunate than himself, even if I would choose to quibble about the details of how he was getting there.]

It is my thought, in fact, that health care was one of the reasons he ultimately chose to publicly support Barack Obama for president over the more logical, and obvious, selection of Hillary Clinton, who up to that point, had a lock on the nomination. I think, in his opinion, Hillary was not going to get any health care reform passed, because the battle would degenerate into the past battle, which she resoundingly lost. I believe that Kennedy, the man with a reputation for reaching across the aisle and making pragmatic compromise, felt his only chance of getting real reform passed was to have in office someone new, someone different, someone who didn't have a past with regard to his pet issue, and thus, who would not polarize the entire Congress into their usual entrenched positions.

I have been musing the last couple of days about his long term legacy, and how history will remember this most complicated of Senators. His niece, Caroline, spoke of carrying on his life's passions to honor his memory. His grandson has claimed that torch of service for himself someday in the future. People in Congress have floated the idea of naming the eventual reform bill after him, in recognition of his contributions to the debate that is currently raging (and enraging, but I digress, as usual.)

His funeral, attended by some of the most powerful people on earth, and also watched by thousands of people whom no one has ever heard of, exposes the real humanity of the man being memorialized. We understand why the wealthy, the well connected, the powerful and famous, would want to see and be seen at the funeral of a Kennedy, whether they knew him or not. But what makes the common people, people like me, shed a tear over the scion of a dynasty that they never met?

Edward Kennedy is a fascinating mix of the good and the bad, the high and the low, the right and the wrong, that is a part of each of us. I think that is our fascination with him, as much as his family name and his power and wealth. For once, the rich and famous aren't unreachable; they have been exposed for what they really are - people just like us.

For those who loved him, I wish them peace and comfort in their grief. It surely must be a heavy load right now, his sister having died just a couple weeks before him. For me, I say farewell to a flawed man with mostly good intentions - an example both of how to live well, and how to live badly, but ultimately, to keep trying the best you can to the very end.