The Journey For Us

Last night I had a difficult conversation with my housemate that left us both disgruntled and upset. She asked to go to bed about 7:30 and after she was settled watching the winter Olympics, I signed on to Facebook.

There’s a new exes group from my old hometown specifically for sharing pre-1970 photos. You’d think I’d have little to discuss with people who graduated 20 years before me, but that is not the case.

Cross-generational friendships are a fact of life in our small, close-knit ranching community, so that I consider people my mother dated in the 1930s to be friends of mine even though I know their children and grandchildren.

It all makes for a special set of connections, and I’m having a lot of nostalgic fun with the group. Last night, there were several of us online at one time and I spent a happy hour reminiscing and laughing over photos.

This led my housemate to launch into one of her favorite rambles about how I’m planning to move back and she’s going to sell everything she owns and buy a little house in East Texas.

I don’t know what is more absurd: the idea that she has either the financial resources or the ability to live alone or that I have a time machine that will take me back to my hometown circa 1968.

That’s the thing about nostalgia. Those of us who are joining together online are living in a virtual representation of where we grew up, a place where time periods shift and blend together and people who have long been resting in their graves come back to life through shared memories.

It give me enormous pleasure and comfort, but I am all too well aware that the place I miss so deeply no longer exists. My housemate, who never lived in one locale longer than a couple of years, has absolutely no ability to comprehend a town like the one in which I was raised.

I realize that her overly facile assumptions and explanations are a product of that nomadic upbringing and her brain damage, but I cannot help that she sets my teeth on edge. Her over-simplifications and frankly condescending characterizations are like salt in a wound for me.

If I could go back in time and resurrect long-dead friends and regain the security and simplicity of days gone by, I would. The fact that I cannot, if dwelled upon in the wrong light, is painful.

I also resent my housemate’s opining on things she does not understand and that are not her memories to discuss. It’s invasive and a little insulting.

We said good night badly and I don’t know what today will hold. In the light of day, I know I over-reacted, but we all have things that are ours and ours alone, memories that are deeply personal and not subject to reinterpretation by outsiders.

I don’t intend to mention participating in this Facebook group to her again, which is a shame, because there are so few things I can share with her about my life online. I thought this was one, but her almost overwhelming need to be superior and all-knowing prevents that from happening.

The incident has made me even more aware of something I’ve known for a long time. Memory, by it’s very nature, is not meant to be perfect. Don’t seek to alter another’s internal landscape. It’s not yours to touch or to correct.