cyberstalker or just the natural result of 10 days without television?

I cyberstalked you today.  OK, well, not you, but several other people.  People from my past to be more exact.

I don't know why I do it, but today definitely wasn't the first time and most decidedly will not be the last.  It almost always starts out the same way....looking for a former friend.  This friend, whom I will call Rachel, and I were very close once upon a time.  We even lived together for a short, ill-fated period, which makes her the only roommate that I ever had outside of school, live-in boyfriends, and my sister when we were kids.  Rachel and I had a very abrupt, very public, and very contentious break up.  I would have to say that it rivaled my divorce and may have, in fact, been worse.  We haven't spoken in over 10 years.  Yet, every so often, I try to find her on the Internet.

I'm not really sure what I want to know about her.  Where does she live?  Did she ever get married?  Have kids?  What is her career?  Maybe.  I think, though, what I really want to know is why.  Why?  And how?  And have you done it to others?  I want to see how someone can be so mean and evil, yet still carry on.  Actually, that's not really true, either.  I don't think she's evil.  I do think that she treated me meanly and acted cruelly towards me.  But, I don't think she's evil.  I've been advised that others do and that I should, but I don't.  After all, she was my best friend for many years.  If she were evil, what would that say about me?

So, I look for her.  And I've found hints of her around the Web.  Something on MyLife.  A maybe on Zabasearch.  I think I even found a Facebook page once, but it has since been blocked or deleted.  I would never contact her....but still I look.

Looking for Rachel often evolves into looking for other people.  Usually my ex-boyfriends are next on the list.  I find them on Facebook or in the Whitepages.  Facebook is best, because a lot of people don't lock down their sites like they should.  I look at their walls, see who they're friends with.  I look at their pictures, and I imagine the lives they've gone on to live since knowing me.  I gauge whether their wives are prettier than me and if their kids look more like him or like her.  The kids are the weirdest part, really.  First, as a childless person, I think it's odd that people with children post so many pictures of them.  The ratio of child to self represented in photograph form for these people is like 20:1.  I know I post a lot of pictures of my pets, for instance, but I still post pictures of myself.  My identity outside of my pets is still intact.  I wonder about these parents when it comes to that.  Plus, doesn't anyone think about their children's online safety???  OK, on a tangent.  What really is weird about the kids is this--if this guy and I hadn't broken up, if he hadn't then gone on to meet his wife, those kids wouldn't exist.  That is kind of creepy to think about.  Of course, you could say that looking up your ex-boyfriends on Facebook is creepy.  I know.  I know.

There's really no rhyme or reason to the people I look up.  Sometimes, someone just pops into my mind and I wonder what they're up to.  The main thread that they commonly hold is that they probably don't want to hear from me.  In a few cases that may not be accurate, but in those few, I have decided that it is in the best interest of all that they don't hear from me.  Maybe it is the fact the these people have scorned me, have left me behind and still somehow prospered that bothers me.  Maybe I do want to see them wallowing in regret and begging to have me back in their lives.  Maybe I just wonder what it is that these people saw that made them decide that I was bad news.  And, maybe I'm afraid that everyone else will eventually see the same thing.

There have been a few searches of people with whom my bridges had not yet been burned.  I have found some former friends and co-workers and reached out to them.  I am Facebook friends with my first serious boyfriend, as well as with one of my last.  I'm not all the bad to all that many people.  Some searches turn out good, some turn up nothing, and some do not have happy endings.

Once, I found an old jar of homemade, home canned spaghetti sauce that an ex of mine had made.  I actually thought, "I should find him and ask him how long this stuff is good for."  So, I started searching.  He was never one to be on Facebook or to use email, so I figured I would be lucky to find an old phone number for him.  I found him.  And pretty quickly.  Unfortunately, it was in the obituaries.  My old friend, it turned out, had been murdered a few years earlier.  Even though it had been many years since we spoke, I cried like a baby.  I was angry, and I felt cheated.  He was a good man, and he didn't deserve to die the way that he did.  He had been one of the few men in my life who didn't use me and who would have done anything to help me.  He was the last man I spent time with before moving away from Indiana, and he had encouraged me to spread my wings and to find myself, even though it meant him losing me.



Forget-me-not



I just took a break from writing this and searched for Rachel again.  (I am truly sick!  Send help!)  This time, I found her mother's obituary.  I had always contemplated contacting her mother, with whom I had a good relationship, to tell her my side of our break up.  I never did, and now it's too late.  Maybe, I was giving Rachel some leeway and not putting her mother in a spot where she didn't have to say anything bad about her.  Her mother had actually warned against us moving in together.  Rachel, she argued, doesn't get along with roommates, and if we wanted to remain friends, we should never live together.  How right she was!  I just always wondered what she would have said after the fact.  I didn't go there.  I decided that that was the better thing to do. 

But, now I'm sad that I never got a chance to tell her what I wish I had.  I would have said, "Thank you" for all the times she filled in as a mother to me, including me in family Christmases and Thanksgivings.  I would have told her that I was sorry if what had happened between me and Rachel hurt her in any way.  I would have said that she was right, that I should have heeded her advice, and that I did all that I could to keep our friendship in tact, but that I couldn't take the way that Rachel treated me towards the end.  I would tell her that I'm happy today.  That I married the man that Rachel got jealous over, said mean things about, and never liked, simply because he liked me.  That she was a good mom.  That she wasn't to blame for Rachel's behaviors as an adult.  That it had nothing to do with her divorce from Rachel's father, or the fact that Rachel was adopted.  These were all beliefs that I knew Rachel harbored and held over her mother's head.  Her mother had been a victim of Rachel's meanness before I had.  Maybe that was why she had warned me.

I guess I'm done cyberstalking today.  Finding an obituary usually does that to me.  It feels so final, at least as far as the searching goes.  It reminds me that if I ever do decide that I want to contact Rachel, my time to do so could always be cut short.  I still don't think that I'm ready to open that can of worms, but I will probably keep peeking around the corner at it.

So, there it is.  My deep, dark secret.  My big confession.  I'm a cyberstalker.  I know I'm not the only one who does it, though.  I may be the only one here admitting to it, but that's OK.  I'll wear the badge of shame for the rest of you.  I will come out of the shadowy corner of the Internet to say that I peep into the online windows of my former friends and lovers.  I do.  And, I would imagine that someone has done the same thing to me...maybe even one of my own subjects.  It's human nature to wonder.  It's only natural to want to repair broken connections, especially when they, at one time, were the most important ones in your life.  There are far worse things I could do and far worse attributes I could have.  My motivation, at its core, is really just a desire to be liked, to be accepted, and to be a part of someone else's life.  What doesn't feel normal is the sting of rejection, the pain of reproof, and the loneliness of isolation.  That's what's weird, not me.

getting outside myself

A good friend gave me some great advice yesterday. Knowing that I was trying to come up with the answers to some difficult questions, she told me to take the afternoon off and just go be with nature. Though I couldn't take the time yesterday, I did get outside a bit today. First, I took three of the dogs to the dog park. I don't usually take Bennie since she's older and doesn't really like playing rough like they do there, but she wanted to go for a ride, so I figured the ride would compensate for the destination. Anyway, the dog park was the perfect destination for me. It's a great park, the best one I've ever been to, with lots of big shade trees, park benches, and picnic tables. It backs up to a brook with a small, dammed off section which creates a pool perfect for dogs to swim in. Since none of mine are swimmers, though Labrador blood runs through half of them, we didn't visit the water today, but some of the other dogs there did and they happily shared the water left on their coats and feet with the rest of us.

The dog park is a great place to just get dirty and have fun. I mean, the dogs have no pretenses about their objectives, so why not drop your defenses and do the same? I, for one, can think of nothing better than being kissed by a 100-pound pit bull who climbs up onto your lap or having a shy Rhodesian nudge your hand for a clandestine stroke while the rest of the canine crowd is engaged in something akin to a rugby scrum in the far corner of the park. The dog park puts all humans on an even playing field. There are no occupations or titles there. You're Gator's mom or Happy's dad. (Yes, there was a dog named Happy there today!) No one asks you about your political views or where your kids go to school. They talk about how old their dog is and how they came to have a dog. They talk about surgeries for knee injuries, baby teeth, the dog at home who doesn't like the park, and the funny things their dogs do. They smile, they laugh, they live in the moment...just like their dogs. The dog park is kind of like a playground for grown-ups.

So, since it's in the 90's right now, we didn't stay at the park for too long, but after everyone had their nap in the A/C, I felt the need to go back outside again. I haven't felt like doing much in the gardens around the house all year. Truth be told, I haven't felt much passion for gardening since we moved here. Maybe it's because the other houses are so close, and I prefer a more secluded outdoor space. Maybe it's just my lack of joy over living in Connecticut in the first place. But, hostas still need to be trimmed back after their blooms are gone, and I still hadn't done this, so outside I went. Armed with a new pair of shears that I found tucked away in my old, rusty gardening cabinet, I started cutting, and cutting, and cutting.

I soon remembered what I loved about being in the garden, about doing a mundane task like weeding or pruning. It's the quiet that I find inside my head. Gone are the voices of worry and doubt. There is no such thing as gossip or judgment. No deadlines, no bills, no boss, no nothing and nobody. Watched over by my dogs, who somehow protect me from the outside world, I am able to just dig into the task at hand. Today, I reacquainted myself with the daddy longlegs spider and thanked him for the great job he does in my garden. I walked barefoot through the fallen leaves of last autumn that line the beds of the side yard, where our characteristically au naturel approach to gardening is more "naturel" than the front, and I could feel the warmth of decay through my soles. I had dirt under my nails and sweat on my brow, and I felt truly accomplished and peaceful, all at once.

I had cut and cut away at the things that were no longer needed and had thrown them in a heap onto the compost pile. Like pushing aside the nonsense that clutters my mind from time to time, I cleared space for new growth as well as tidying up what's left behind when an something dies. There's still work to do, as I never made it to the hosta bed outside the kitchen window, but I guess I know where my next opportunity lies.