Do I really "like" Facebook?

So I’ve been thinking about this thing I “Liked” on Facebook recently. It said:

Don't worry about the people in your past; There's a reason they didn't make it to your future.

I’m sure that’s true, to a certain extent, but what about those from your past who re-enter your present and are part of your future? At what point was I supposed to stop worrying about them? And, if they’re in my present now, am I supposed to make up for lost time and double my worry quotient for them in the present and past? I can see how I need to stop fretting over how I acted toward my third grade teacher or a boy I beat up in elementary school (yes, I was a bit of a tomboy-ish bully – especially if you picked on one of my siblings), but what about this thing called karma?

So Friday was my last day working for the Lewiston Police Department. For those of you who didn’t know, I was asked to come back and work for two months while the Administrative Secretary, Lori, took some time off for family reasons. It coincided nicely with my summer break from class so I decided to move back from my temporary abode in Idaho Falls to Moscow and make the five day-a-week commute to Lewiston. I wasn’t at all worried about being able to do the job because, well, I had held this exact same job for about five years before going back to school and I was the person who had trained Lori on how to do the job. Luckily, since it’s a government entity, not too much had changed. However, after a month Lori decided to come back early and I was shuffled off to a different part of the department to do odd jobs and projects for people for the remaining month. And that’s what I did: organized and scanned old files, updated training books, created flyers, gathered statistics, etc. Yep, exciting stuff.

Alright, so maybe it wasn’t the most exciting job, but a HUGE plus about the job was that it enabled me to see and meet some awesome people – again. I will be the first to admit that I am a slacker and didn’t try that hard to maintain contact with many of my co-workers from the past. Facebook is great in that you’re able to reconnect with people, but one “con” of it is that it allows you to maintain your distance if you want. It’s like when someone asks you if you're still friends with someone or keep in contact with them and you reply: "Sure, we’re friends on Facebook! What? Oh, you mean when did we talk last or have a meaningful conversation that wasn’t filled with one-line status changes and me clicking on the “Like” button? Umm…look over there! Is that Bigfoot?!"

Okay, Patty. Get to the point. What does this all mean? Well, I think it means that change is good. My summer plans did not go according to my plans, I came back to my old “stomping grounds,” and got to work with some people who were, and still are, great influences on me. So the saying I liked on Facebook (Don't worry about the people in your past; There's a reason they didn't make it to your future) doesn’t really hold true for me in this situation. I had stopped worrying about my former co-workers and moved on, but lucky for me they became an integral part of my present and future.

I know that many people come in and out of our lives for different reasons and needs we have, sometimes without our knowing it at the time. I can’t count the number of times it has seemed someone was a part of my life for a particular time and reason and then moved on their merry way.

I guess the most important thing I realized about all of this, and about other people from my past, is that yes, there are those in my past that I can’t go back to and rectify mistakes, hurts, or slights I have done to them in the bodily sense, but what I did, how I felt, and what I learned from them and the experiences (the soul and spirit) I can hold and take with me to my future. No one we ever come in contact with or associate with ever really leaves us. A part of them will be carried with me forever, if nothing else than so they can be a reminder for me about those things I did right, as well as wrong. It’s the remembering of the seeming intangible emotions and sentiments that are actually the most potent and lasting.
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Okay, I just re-read this and I know what I was trying to say, but did any of what I just said make any sense to you?