Facebook is wonderful!

So a friend of mine emailed me a few days ago with an invitation to Facebook. I had heard of this Facebook, even signed up for an account that never went anywhere...I think I logged in twice. So I decided to respond to her invitation and take a look at my profile. I added some photos, filled in the profile, and suddenly it was like a high school reunion! As soon as I entered my high school, the tool bar on the right filled with old familiar faces...hundreds of them! I began adding friends, and while I was adding, I began going through profiles.

That song by Garth Brooks (I think) came to mind as I was looking...the one where he saw his high school flame at a football game and realized how amazing his wife was and how glad things did not work out the way he wanted back then. The people from my high school were unique...I knew that from way back when. But the things they've done and accomplished at this point are truly staggering. They have beautiful families, awesome careers, and are just about the best-looking group of people ever *wink*. But as I roamed through dozens and dozens of profiles, I found that I had not one regret about where I was in life.

Recently, I began getting down because I haven't finished my degree and got married and had children before I finished college. But as I've been talking to my old schoolmates, I've seen that everyone is in a different stage of life. Some have finished college, some haven't. Some have married, some haven't. Some have children, some don't. I realized that what defined the norms for our parents' generation is not what defines us. As my husband pointed out, not everyone completed four years in the military, either, so why feel down on myself for not finishing college yet when I had completed an honorable tour in the military?

And speaking of my husband...as I flicked through the photos of guys from high school, some I had crushes on, some I went on dates to prom or otherwise with, I realized just how incredibly lucky I am to have met my husband. Not to diss any guy I went to high school with, but they have beautiful wives or girlfriends, in every photo they're beaming with joy, and I realize that God had our paths laid for us before we even knew who we were. My husband is gorgeous, smart, compassionate, sweet, brave, loyal, and everything I ever looked for in a man. While I may have had high-school crushes on some of these men, I'm so very glad I let God lead me to the man I now call my husband and the father to my children.

I feel like Facebook, funny as it sounds, has led me to a sense of closure about certain things in life; allowed me to let go of a fleeting sense of "what might have been". What if I had graduated from USC and never enlisted in the Navy? {I'd probably be an overweight, unhappy band teacher.} What if I had married one of my high school boyfriends? {I'd probably be wishing I had dated more & seen more of the world before I married.} The people in those pages will always hold a special place in my heart, whether they ignored me in high school or were my best friends. Somehow, they all are a part of who I am today.

I'll forever be of the belief that the young men and women from South Carolina are some of the best in the world. We are smarter, more determined (who else could support the Gamecocks like we do?), and have the kind of old-South grace and sophistication that people around the world yearn for. I've seen this during my time in the military more than ever, as I met people from around the nation and the world. You can almost pick out a South Carolinian in a crowd by their beauty, their decorum and posture, and their big smile. I always smile when I see a palmetto tree sticker on the back of a car up here in VA (and, yes, I proudly sport one too!), and I can't wait for the day I can return and wiggle my toes in the sand in Charleston, sip sweet tea, and listen to some James Taylor. And feel confident that although I may have travelled the road less taken, I'm still a South Carolinian at heart and will always have this group to relate to and remember with.