Joseph had that splendid coat. I have this life. I find myself still contemplating birthday wishes from the weekend. I did my best to offer a “thumbs up” as each came through and then on Sunday, in between packing and closing up shop for a month long return home to GR from LA, I added a “thank you”. I wanted to do this to take in the names of the people that took the time to offer up the Happy Birthday wish to me. It gave me the opportunity to reflect on how varied my life has been.
My feed had well wishes from close high school friends and
distant high school friends, old work colleagues, past employees, old board
member friends, family friends, friends of friends, improv friends, actor
friends, childhood friends, film friends, LA friends, Michigan friends, Chicago
friends, old Rotarian friends, writer friends, Michigan theatre friends, LA
theatre friends, LaughFest friends, my closest friends, my cousins, my
husband’s relatives, my husband’s friends, my siblings, my siblings friends and
even my hubby.
Now my sister Mary Kay once said to me, “Teresa, you can’t
call a person a friend unless you go to a movie with them.” That’s her bar for friendship. I used
to say something like, “Oh I ran in to my friend Carla the other day.” And
she’d say, “Who’s Carla? I’ve never heard of Carla. She’s not a friend-friend. Would you go to a movie with her?” Mary Kay isn’t always annoying.
While I’ve never believed her definition to be true, her
inane wisdom occasionally rolls around in the deep recesses of my brain…
especially at times like these when that Facebook feed is filled with well
wishes from “friends”. I thought I’d look up the definition of “friend”. It’s a NOUN (a person whom one knows
and whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or
family relations) AND a VERB (to add someone to a list of contacts on a social
networking website.) How about a third definition? I’ve decided
the Facebook birthday wishes are a combination of the two: a VOUN, if you will,
or a NERB perhaps (someone with whom you’ve had an interaction in your life
either significant or minimal that takes 10 seconds in their day to actively
create a touch point for you on the anniversary of your birth.)
So by Mary Kay’s definition, my feed is not made up of
friends. I certainly wouldn’t think to go to movies with the majority of the
people on my Facebook feed - unless he/she asked, of course. But I’m guessing
everybody on my feed would have an opinion about a movie I attended, if they
felt compelled to respond to a post. And that response would be a reminder of
who that person is / was in my life. Some of the people may have friended me, or
I them, because we did a show together or had an amazing 20-minute conversation
at a party about the state of politics in our country or he/she dated my third
cousin once removed and they friended me and I didn’t have the heart to not
accept the friendship because he/she has a photo of bird as their profile picture.
Regardless
of how they… how YOU… ended up on my wall, you represent something in my life, some
era, some moment in time that has led to me become the person I am. Your presence on my
feed helped evoke a memory for me – maybe vague, maybe clear. But both, I believe, mean something.
Thank you, friend, for helping me to remember how many diverse paths I have walked in this life and for making my birthday feel meaningful.
