Uniting the Mental Compartments

In the two months since I've been on Facebook I feel my life "coming together."

I did not realize until now how compartmentalized and segregated my personal memories were. In a way, the me of high school, of college, of young adulthood, the parent of teenagers and the man now facing middle age were all kept separate in my mind. I had different friends and was in different situations in each of those stages.

There is something different between the relationship you have with those who you knew and who knew you "back in the day," back when you were young, than the relationships you have that start later in life. Both kinds of relationships can be special, but they are different.

Today I look a my list of Facebook friends and see individuals from so many periods of my life experience: high school classmates, college classmates, friends who shared with us the experiences of being newlyweds, of being new parents, friends who knew me in my early career struggles, friends from two states now scattered all over the USA, friends from three different churches we have been part of, as well as the friends who share my life now. Some of these friends are actually interacting with each other on my Facebook wall. The mental compartments are coming together, the life stages are merging, the walls of memory are coming down. I feel more unified.

I know this is not well written, and may not make any sense. But I just want to ask - does any body else feel this way? Has anybody else experienced this?