It's official! EVERYONE is on Facebook!

While I have been involved with on-line groups and social networking for quite a while, I was not an early fan of Facebook. I joined MySpace and set up a profile, but never really did much with it.

I first joined Facebook about 3 or 4 years ago to view my friend (and former colleague) Dennis' pictures of Fiji. Dennis and I taught together my first year. Dennis retired shortly after that and went to Fiji to teach at a Bible college. I didn't really "get" Facebook at the time.

About a year or two ago, a bunch of friends from my infertility support group (Hannah's Prayer) began friending each other on Facebook. I went a bit overboard and friended everybody I could find. Many I later purged because I had no idea who they were!

Shortly after the great HP (Hannah's Prayer) move to Facebook, one of my bridesmaids, Teri, friended me. The last time I had seen Teri was when I subbed at the school she worked at. Through Teri, I connected with many members of my old youth group. I found a few people from high school and college, and even some family members. 4 of my 6 siblings are on Facebook, and several of my nieces, nephews and cousins too.

Every once in a while, I will do searches for old friends. Sometimes I find some. But there were a couple of people I just could not find. I tried google, I tried MySpace, I tried Facebook....I even tried those White Pages where they charge you to find people. (I never did the paid version.) Both friends have common first names (Susan and Melinda) and fairly common last names. I knew that both had moved (one is an Air Force wife). So I didn't even know where to localize a search. Both Susan and Melinda were bridesmaids in my wedding 22 years ago.

Susan was my best friend my senior (and her freshman) year of high school. She moved to Washington state, and came back for my wedding the next year. We were penpals for a while. A couple of years later we were back in California after college when she married one of my classmates. (Susan's brother was in my class, and she married his best friend.) The last time I "talked" to Susan, she was in Virginia--about 15 years ago?? But the moved a few times and we moved a few times. And we lost touch.

Melinda dated my brother for a while. They didn't last long, but we became friends. She and her husband lived in Syria for a while, and they moved to Washington when they got back. I connected with her once, but then lost contact again.

Last month, I got a friend request from Melinda. Yeah! I was thrilled. We exchanged "where have you been for the past 10+ years?" stories. Once again I tried looking for Susan. No luck. Until last night. I logged into Facebook (which I don't necessarily do every day) and there was a friend request from Susan! No picture or anything, but I knew it was her. She just joined Facebook this week. Her husband wanted to connect with high school classmates. And she found me.

Oh...and get this....about a year and a half ago, they were in ROSWELL (my town). Can you believe it? We might have been sitting at McDonald's play area watching our kids together!?!?!

So, last night, after finding Susan, I did a few friend of a friend searches and found a few of my old teachers (Hi! Mr. Q!) And I realized that EVERYBODY is on Facebook. My sister's 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Whitehead (who was old when we were in 6th grade almost 30 years ago!) is on Facebook!