I have recently become aware of deeply buried memories. Memories that I thought I had successfully erased from my brain. But, the same brain that cannot remember where my glasses were set down minutes before managed to dredge up recollections from many years ago. Painful memories. Memories of forcibly being made to do things I did not want to do. Yes, that’s right. Memories of summer camp. And I have Facebook to thank for this.
What set these flashbacks hurtling past other deeply hidden memories from storage was my recently added friends on Facebook. Actually, they’re more than friends. They’re long-lost cousins with whom I was thrilled to re-connect. We were not as close to my dad’s side of the family because of distance and age difference. My dad was the baby in his family, with his oldest sister almost twenty years his senior. His siblings were married with children when he was still a kid, making his nieces and nephews (my cousins) only a few years younger than him. My cousins’ kids were my age. Follow me so far? But, distance also separated us as several of the family were located in the beautiful states of Wisconsin and Michigan. Upper Peninsula Michigan, to be exact. And that’s an important distinction. Kind of like trying to tell someone from Sicily that they’re from Italy. No they’re not. They’re from Sicily. They are Sicilian. It’s different.
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Life on a Box Wine Budget 