My Journey and How Social Media Helped Me.....

For most of my life there have been unanswered questions. Many times I wondered how things would have been had life made a different turn. I know you can spend a lot of time and energy on things you have no control over, but it is human nature to ask questions like this.

Things changed about a year ago, but my journey really started about 12 years ago. What happened 12 years ago? 12 years ago I purchased my first computer after visiting a friends house for dinner. My first experience with the internet was on Internet Relay Chat. WOW! You could talk to someone in Florida, or at least that's where they said they were! LOL!

Back to the journey. Growing up I knew I had like 5 or 6 Aunts, but I only remember meeting one of them and I was very young at the time. Some time back I was able to acquire an address for this particular Aunt, but unfortunately, the address was no longer hers and sadly I gave up hope once again.

My journey only hit a speed bump back then and about a year ago social media gave me the jump start I needed. Remember, I still knew the full name of one Aunt and one day out of the blue, I did a Facebook search on her name. Guess what? That name came with a face, a face I didn't remember too well, but I believed that this was the right person based on age. (I am thankful that some people do not have their security settings set very high, but I don't recommend that.) Anyway, I requested friends and clicked to view her wall. On the wall I saw a post from a young lady referring to who I believed to be my Aunt, as Aunty. I sent that young lady a message, "the message", that started what turned out to be the best thing to happen to me in a long time.

I now have a new family and that message has turned into a family reunion. To date I have only met one of my Aunts in person, but two weeks from now, I will be meeting another. Did I mention this whole deal also comes with 5 new cousins? I'm meeting 4 of them in two weeks as well. I have a new perspective in life since that first message and know this is only the beginning of something pretty damn cool. To date the score is 4 Aunts, 5 Cousins and lots of anticipation!

I really don't know how I'm gonna handle all of this on that day, so if you see me tweetin' at a ridiculous rate on November 4-7th, it's just social media helping me out once again.

@MarkBolin