Much is said about Facebook, both positive and negative. There will always be a number of people who raise alarms about privacy issues and I have many real-life friends who I can’t “friend” on Facebook because they are paranoid about somebody, somewhere or anybody, anywhere getting a peep into their oh-so private lives.
Me? As long as you don’t see me naked or use images of my kids I don’t care what information you collect about me. As long as you can’t identity-theft me, I’m fine with your targeted advertisements. Although, I must say that I am somewhat miffed that the ads targeted to me seem to be for weight loss and wrinkle reduction products. Hmm…something to think about I guess. Personally, I think that Facebook is great. It is both practical and fun. And it allowed me to right a wrong from my youth.
I was not a nice kid from grades 3-5. I had my reasons I suppose, but that is another long story best saved for another day. Suffice it to say that I beat up everyone in my grade and higher who looked at me sideways or didn’t show me the proper respect. I defended the smaller and weaker, but took on anyone else. The one exception to my benevolence was Jessica Zeeman.
My childhood memory is very poor but I remember Jessica as being tall with long wavy brown hair and, I think, glasses. I have a feeling Jessica had few, if any, fans in our elementary school and I wish desperately that I had been the kind of kid that would reach out and befriend her. But, I wasn’t and I didn’t. I didn’t beat her up, there would have been no challenge or prize in that, in fact, I think I went to her house once because I heard that her family was rich and I wanted to check it out. But I was not nice to her and I do vividly recall one day at school, we were all lined up outside waiting to go back in and Jessica was directly in front of me and I spit in her hair. She didn’t know I had done it and I have no idea how long it took for her to find out about the spit or how she discovered it. But this incident has stayed with me for years. What a nasty thing to do, why did I do this? I have no other recollections of Jessica; I don’t think we went to the same high school.
About a year ago I got a “friend” request from a Jessica Green. She didn’t look at all familiar, but she was already friends with a number of my elementary and high school acquaintances, so I figured this was just one of those cases where someone remembered me much better than I remembered them and I accepted the request. It was months and months before I found out, though another “friend”, that Jessica Green was Jessica Zeeman. I was truly surprised. Why would she want to “friend” me on Facebook? Why would she want to “friend” ANY of us – none of us were nice to her in school, I don’t remember anyone ever sticking up for Jessica.
I had wanted for years to be able to apologize to Jessica for my behavior. My mean-spiritedness towards her had weighed on my heart for so long. I think, in some way, she represented anyone and everyone I may have hurt as I tried to deal with my own difficult situation growing up.
So now I had the opportunity, but how to go about it? After some thought, I sent Jessica a private message, telling her that I have few memories of my youth but that I do remember being mean to her, and I apologized. I told her that having been her “friend” on Facebook for several months I can see that she has clearly risen above school-time taunts to become a kind and thoughtful woman as well as a great mom.
Jessica replied graciously, thanking me for the apology and saying that she honestly does not have memories of any particular unkindness from me. She said that she was teased and bullied a lot as a kid. She said she learned tolerance, compassion and understanding from her experiences. She said that it is nice to have me as a friend after all these years.
Wow. Well, that certainly took a longstanding load off my chest and made me feel free. Who was it who said “you can’t go home again”? Well, that may be true, Mr. Wolfe, but I did go back, didn’t I? I did, I went back, and made good something from my youth that was bad. I don’t know if my apology meant all that much to Jessica, I don’t know if one simple and heartfelt “I’m sorry” can make up for years of bullying and meanness from groups of children. But I do know that Jessica’s forgiveness meant an awful lot to me. If my memory of my unkindness to her was symbolic of the various unkindnesses of my childhood, then her forgiveness is symbolic of a fresh start for me. Thank you, Jessica. And thanks Facebook.
Claudine Dionne
January 27, 2010
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