The picture has nothing really to do with this post other than I love fall in the mountains. The topic of this post is my dear sweet 20 yr old niece. A child I used to feed a bottle to, a child I watched grow up. I will here and now admit that I currently stalk said niece on Facebook because otherwise I would have no idea what was going on in her life - it is her fault - she should not have friended me. Last night I pulled up her page to check what she was up to and the first thing I noticed was that she changed her profile picture. From the thumbnail I thought she had gotten into abstract art, upon blowing up the image I discovered that it was not abstract art it was her, with a turtleneck pulled over her face and her underwear in full view for the Facebook universe. If I had been munching on my current diet of Starbursts - I would have choked on one. Before you think I am coming off as some kind of prude take into account two things: one - she is my niece therefore I am very protective of her and two - having gone through a wild period that I will not expound on I know what it is like to look back at past decisions and think "oh crap what was I thinking." I had the luxury of making said unfortunate decisions pre-Facebook and I admit a few post (library school can by CRAZZZZZZZZZY!). My hope for her as for all my nieces and nephews is that they don't have to feel that surge of shame and regret when looking at past choices and that those past choice don't haunt them indefinetly in the land of electronic TMI. My hope for myself is that I can learn to stop cyber-stalking my family because the less I know about them the easier I can digest my candy.
