Monday 14 May 2012

Turn back the clock

Social media is wielding an uncomfortable yet addictive brand of torment for me: facebook has begun colluding with my midlife crisis.

These days, it is impossible to close the door on any chapter of my life due to the surviving evidence - ever present and all too visible.There, on the social-networking site to which I am - guiltily - party, are images of people from my past I thought I put to bed. Sometimes I have not seen their faces for decades, and I confess that the intervening years can cause me to wince. It’s rather like looking in the mirror after ten years without reflective surfaces: a brutal reminder of the passage of time which, thank goodness, is softened by the ritual of daily ablutions and glances in high street shop fronts. Seeing your teen-peers in full-flung middle age is a tactful reminder that they are not the only ones for whom the passing years bear scars.