(Originally published 3/28/07 on journalstar.com)

With email and Myspace and Facebook and Google people search out there, this generation is keeping in touch with people from our past more than any before. It changes the way we look at our past. It’s suddenly never really over.

People that would usually fade away when our lives moved in separate directions are suddenly available to check on at any time. People that we always thought we’d eventually date but never did, people that we should have never dated but did anyway… now we keep tabs on them all.

It’s strange but I like it. I like that years after the awkwardness faded an old boyfriend and I can be friends from 500 miles away, and I can see his face in the face of his new baby in a picture he emailed me. I like that a former high school classmate who didn’t have much in common with me found me online and now we’re more alike than we ever were when we were younger, plus we have all those same high school memories from different viewpoints. And I like that after my vacation last week, where I made friends from the opposite end of the earth, it’s possible to keep some kind of connection with these people.

It also makes it easier to forgive, apologize, and leave nothing unsaid when the opportunity to be honest is there now and 5 years from now.

I’m learning this does lead to more drama though, since it’s so easy to get your guts up and send a brutally honest email some random night at 3 am. We’re becoming the generation without things we regret never saying, and without secrets. That’s going to have a bigger impact than we realize.