Selective Memory

Having left New York after 5th grade, when I was eleven years old, I eventually began to forget about many of my school friends.  I remembered my best friends - but without any photos or other reminders, I've forgotten most of the others I knew in school.  Without any extraordinary experiences to share, other faces have faded.  Apparently, some still remember me - but I had an extraordinary story among the other eleven year olds - I was not only moving away, but moving to the impossibly distant world of "Hollywood."  

On Facebook, I saw the Wickshire School 6th grade portrait - the picture in which I would have appeared if we hadn't moved.   Other than the core group of friends I mentioned a couple of blog entries back, I don't recall anyone else.  It was fascinating - my friends were just beginning to grow up - I was long gone, establishing my own life some 3,000 miles away.  One friend visited the summer we moved away, another when we were 18.  Letters became scarce, and eventually life went on and I lost all contact.  I had my new friends and adventures, they had their new friends and adventures.  In more recent years, and recent weeks, I've heard where some of those lives have led.  

All of my earliest friends in New York became professionals - doctors, lawyers, teachers, and accountants - I've gone into a creative field.  I've fairly sure I would have taken the same route regardless of whether or not I moved away- my family influence was fairly strong - but I have to wonder if my life decisions - or for that matter, my friend's decisions, would have been impacted by an altered history in which I had remained.   I'm not suggesting that I would have had any special influence, but I wonder about the positive and negative influences I would have had on them, and they would have had on me....