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In the past few months, I’ve reconnected on Facebook and LinkedIn with a lot of classmates and a few old boyfriends from high school and college. One friend has the distinction of having introduced me to my future husband in high school; another friend sat next to me in our college freshman English class. Many of these people used to be very important to me; their opinions once mattered. Many I haven’t seen or talked to in more than 25 years. 

The first old boyfriend I reconnected with on Facebook was Dave.  He and I had dated on and off for several years. His family owned a gentleman’s farm on the east side of town and we spent hours paddling around his pond in a rowboat or driving a vintage red fire truck around the property. He taught me how to fish, dress preppy and drink vodka tonics with lime. I loved his family and remember thinking at one of their family events, “I am happy here.”  Dave, though Robert Redford-handsome, was extremely shy and I did most of the talking, trying to draw him out and keep the conversation flowing. Our relationship was innocent—he was more of a friend than a boyfriend, though I think he may have wanted more.  Our relationship made me realize that when I did eventually marry, my husband’s family—and his relationship with his parents—would be an important part of who he was.  And though I loved Dave's family, it was not his family I would ultimately live with, look at over a newspaper every morning and yes, try to talk to.  

The last time I saw Dave, I told him I had starting dating my current husband.  I also remember he wasn’t happy about it.  But 30 years later, he had a different recollection about that last conversation. 

“I had just met (my wife) and I’m sure I wished you well,” he wrote. 

I also reconnected with Mike, a man I had a huge crush on my first year in college. Mike’s eyes were deep pools of black ink, lined with long, thick lashes that I often stared at, wondering how they didn’t get caught in his eyelids.  With Mike, I argued the theological differences between eternal security and losing your salvation, Calvinism andArminianism, and why I loved C.S. Lewis and Billy Graham. He was one of the first to challenge me to defend my faith.  He’d listen intently, head cocked, but was rarely dissuaded from his point of view. Mike was driven, serious and made me feel smart and witty.  But I also felt that I couldn’t be myself around Mike, and that he was somewhat out of reach, as if there was a wall behind those dark lashes that I would never be able to break through.

Twenty-eight years after our last conversation, Mike told me about his wife and daughter; I filled him in on my husband, boys and journalism career.  We reminisced about our philosophy discussions (he is still dogmatic) and I mentioned, offhandedly, that I remembered being miserable my first year in college. 

“I don’t remember you being that way at all,” he said.  “You seemed content and very happy, in fact.”

And then there’s Marc.  He and I have known each other since we were 10-year-olds on the local swim team.  He knew me when I barely filled out the one-piece team swimsuit and when, in high school, I sported a Dorothy Hamill haircut and dorky green corduroy pants with a matching plaid shirt.  I knew him when he was a gawky, late-blooming adolescent, as opposed to the powerful, well-respected businessman he is now.  We are familiar with each other’s high school crushes and embarrassments.  He knows exactly what I feel when I mention the name of our swim coach—no explanation needed. 

Marc reminded me of the many times we ate nothing but french fries and slushies all day and played 4-Square and Hide ‘n Seek for hours, going home only when it was time to eat dinner.  I told him that back then, I had felt alone on the playground when everybody else seemed so effortlessly popular. 

He scoffed and said, “I remember that you seemed to have a barnyard full of friends.”

I started wondering why everyone remembered me differently than I remember myself.  Maybe it’s because I only remembered the disappointments, the humiliations, the occasions my mother embarrassed me in front of my friends, again and again. I felt as though I limped from one event to another, mustering enthusiasm while drowning myself in sports and activities; hiding what was really going on at home behind achievements and accolades. 

Throughout my life, classmates and the men I dated knew little of my tumultuous home life.  To them, I was a leggy brunette with short hair who played a lot of tennis and had strict, religious parents who rarely let me wear pants, even to ice skate or bowl. 

By reconnecting and sharing memories, I have been forced to recall the blessings.  And those blessings remind me that I've led an extraordinary life despite the disappointments, or maybe partly, because of them. 

My life demonstrates the power a woman has to overcome her past; to go beyond her mother’s predictions that she wouldn’t amount to much, to recover from mean girls saying they hated you and others who held my head under water too long at the Racquet Club pool.

As it turns out, each of my old friends, every recollection they share, and every memory I reveal, is a major part of the woman, mother and wife I am now. 

And for that, I will be forever grateful. 

Diana Keough is the mother of four sons and the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of ShareWIK.com.

More Diana Keough articles, here. 

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