Everyone, it seems, has a different opinion about Facebook.  I know people whose spouses won't allow them to join Facebook for fear that it's just a place to hook-up.  I have friends who use it primarily as a place to hook-up.  Then there is my friend Sara, who turns to Facebook to log the activity of her very full life: classes in ukelele and bee keeping, flea marketing hunting, brunches, dinners, girls night out - it's enviable really.  And I know that, should I ever be in the neighborhood, I can find her on Saturday mornings sitting at a little sidewalk cafe, one that was in a scene from Silver Linings Playbook, as she was quick to point out - on Facebook.  Some people use Facebook to advance social causes that they believe in.  Others use it to share information, pithy quotations, family photos.  I use Facebook as a means to connect with the world and friends and family in faraway places.  It has made the world a smaller place, the connection more immediate, despite the miles or, in some cases, years.  Indeed, I am most grateful to Facebook for enabling me to connect with dear old friends, who have a special place in my heart and memory that I have always cherished.   These are people whom I have never forgotten and thought about all these years.  "If only I knew how to get in touch with them...." " If only we could catch up...."  There are many such friends on my Facebook Friends list.  Dear friends from elementary school, junior high, high school.  Some I have been in touch with sporadically through the years, many more of them I have wondered about over the years, but, having moved away from my hometown 20+ years ago, I  didn't know how to find. It would not be an exaggeration to say that reconnecting with many old friends, has brought a special joy to my life.  I am not so naive as to think that all of these people are my "friends."  Like me, many of them have lived several lives between now and then - divorces, careers, moves, heartache, health issues.   And then we reconnect online and the distance between us - in time and in space - seems so small.  Yet many questions circle my mind:  Would we have anything to talk about if we met up?  Would we still like each other and really be friends?  I am, after all, quite selective about whom I 'friend' on Facebook. Unlike my teenage daughter, whose social life seems to center on how many hundreds of Facebook friends she has, I choose to connect only with those people with whom I shared a connection, however long ago or far away.  I am not frivolous with my Facebook friendship.  I am discerning.  So there's Paula, one of the only girls whom I connected with in all my years of Hebrew School.  She was witty and down to earth - still is.  And through a random posting in Facebook I learned that her father  was fond of my grandfather and both had since passed away.  And when my own father passed away several months ago, she reached out to me through Facebook and it brought me comfort.  Haven't seen her in 30+ years, but someone out there related to my grief, knew the essence of the person I was, and took the time to express care and compassion.  How many of us experience that in our day to day lives?  Sara, whom I mentioned above, and I share a special kinship via Facebook, more than we ever did when we lived in the same city and worked at the same school.  We have developed a bond via Facebook over the years.  We connect, we share, we care.  Jane was my neighbor and my best friend.  We loved each other as only best friends do.  She has a very special place in my heart.  We used to hang out in the playhouse in her backyard, discovered the Cars and Elvis Costello by listening to her sister's records, and each year I had the vicarious pleasure of celebrating Christmas   while helping to decorate her family Christmas tree and making a gingerbread house in her kitchen.  We've kept in touch via Facebook for a couple of years.  We comforted each other this past fall, when we lost one of our parents within a week of each other. We've will reunite in a couple of months.  I can't wait to see her, hug her, knowing, as I do, thanks to Facebook, that our bond was never broken.  Most recently, I connected with my first love from 31 years ago.  Is it a threat to his marriage or mine?  Of course not. And yet it still brings joy to my heart to know that he shares fond memories of our summer together.  And I am happy to know that he is happily married, living not far from where he grew up, still handsome, albeit with less hair now.  Facebook has reconnected me to my past, a time when I was innocent and idealistic, the best of who I am.  Were it not for Facebook, I would not have reconnected with many people, remembered the importance they had in my life, and how they shaped who I am today.  It has grounded me and reminded me of who I was before I became jaded and cynical by a well-worn life.  It has reminded me who I was, who I am, and who I want to be.  Thank you, Facebook. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />