I probably am not the only one who has experienced this strange feeling. There have been times I have said goodbye to a friend, even if just for the night or even if it was meant to be a 'see you later' sometime in the future (due to my multiple moves), and starting from a few moments later they are in dragged into my present and months to come... I still picture that person exactly where I left them. Whether they were by a sidewalk, or on the door of their house, or at a party. Somehow I'm unable to disconnect to that last image I have had of them. I maybe romantically and absurdly convince myself that they will be exactly where I left them. I'm talking about all my friends I have spread around the globe. They don't age, they don't move from where I last saw them, they just sit still like a photograph on a shelf waiting to be picked up and dusted.
What just made me think of this? I've been aware of this way of thinking of mine for a while. Maybe it's a some sort of shield I use to protect myself. As long I believe my loved ones are exactly where I left them I have no worries. I will miss them but I will find them back in the exact same shape and location... maybe it's my obsessive compulsive disorder that surfaces even in my way of remembering people.
I once again ask myself: What made me think of this? Believe it or not that monster tool called Facebook is to blame! As you all know it loves to give you a preview of people you might know. Well I accidentally saw some people I used to know... and to my surprise... TOTAL SURPRISE!!!.... their children who were born right before I moved abroad... they are now almost 20 years old! WTF??? Weren't they supposed to stay babies forever? This is what happened before the Facebook era. You just were clueless of the time going by. Everything remained the same as you left it and survived in your memory in a dream like ever green state. Not anymore, now all these social networks have to remind me that time does go by, people change, they move, they even grow up without my permission!!!
I'm not sure I like all this technology sometime. Now I feel old... which makes me feel restless. Why can't we stop time? Why can't we time travel? I feel like all the people I know have a clone who still and always will live in my memory universe where nothing ever ages.
