House Made of Glass

The one thing about all of these elements of communication now a days, is one's ability to scan photos and post them on an electronic medium of his or her choice. This rediculous program called Facebook is a perfect example of one such platform this can be done.

I have around one hundred and seventy friends on Facebook.

I think the essential idea of having a friend on Facebook is this: "Hey, at one point we knew each other. We may have even hung out and spent time together for a number of years. One day, we simply stopped calling. Now it's ten or more years later, I have found you, and it is of my general opinion that our friendship never ended. It was put on hold." I'm not sure how much further it might go than that, because I don't talk to the majority of my friends on Facebook. Yet when I go and look at some of the pictures that these people on my list have posted it amazes me how instantly I am brought back to the years in which I hung out with them.

I don't really know what happened. I think it must have been me, because I see a lot of the great and trustworthy people I used to surround myself with in these photos still hanging out with the same people. Perhaps it was my self fish pursuits as a drug dealer, trying to fit in with the under world as it were. My goodness, it sounds pathetic doesn't it? I pushed them away from myself. I thought I was cooler, and probably even better than all of them.

I gander through a lot of photos from the past and present; of these people who I used to know so well, hang out with so much, be so close to. They're all still together, probably doing the same thing. I wonder if they ever think what I'm doing...I wonder if they ask themselves, "Whatever happened to that Nathan Hill guy?"

I miss those days. Not in a yearning for the past kind of way, because I am perfectly content with where and who I am these days. I don't feel that I "blew it" in anyway. But I miss the days when I was in a band, when I went to those classic highschool parties. I miss all of the people who I see on Facebook in those pictures, both old and new. It is very interesting. Touching, perhaps.

It's nothing I feel sad about. Don't get me wrong. I just think it's important to consider this when I look at someone's picture and realize that these folks were genuine. They were, and most likely still are, the Real Deal. I was not. I was genuine, then became a monster. I became an asshole. I became a House Made of Glass. It took me a lot longer to know who I really was. I still don't know who I really am, but I know where I really am. I know who I am with now.

I think if I were to get together with any of these folks who are on my Friends list on Facebook that I could probably pick up where we left off. That there was a connection there so many years ago that would enable a connection to this day. These are people who I would love to introduce my wife to, as they knew me when she did not. They could tell her things about me that I wouldn't even know where to begin telling.

Perhaps the next time I come home, I'll phone up some of these people. It would be so nice, and I feel it would be important. To let these old friends know that I'm still alive. We're all still alive.