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.
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.
