I Wonder about the "When"

I was looking at facebook today because I had time to dink around on the internet.

You know, I'm unemployed. A girl can only sew for so long before she needs a break!

Anyway, I started realizing something that startled me a bit. Most of the people who I went to grade school/high school with are really quite different from me. As a general rule, these people live within about an hour of where we grew up.

These tend to be the things that they think or say on facebook:

::conservative

::Christian

::lots of Bible verse quoting

::lots of quotes about how war is a good thing, etc.

::lots of children

::quite a few people who have houses and multiple cars and lots of things

::lots of luxury-looking trips

::lots of pictures with grandparents and extended family at the weekly family stuff

::lots of pictures of places where I grew up and where they still live

None of these things are bad, and I could go on and on for quite awhile about all the ways they seem to be alike and all the ways that I am no longer alike.

The real point is that this used to be me. I used to label myself the same ways, believe mostly the same things, and have mostly the same type of life goals. I am left wondering what happened to me that changed me? I do not think the changes make me better, but they do make me different. I grew up in the same environment, I went to the same type of undergraduate college, I got married really young even.

The truth is that, to most of my friends (well..maybe not *friends*...facebook friends, I guess) the question is probably 'what the crap happened to her?'

So that is also my question. When did this happen to me? When did I start changing so drastically from the known to the unknown? For me, there is no going back to who I was. In fact, some friends and I laugh about who we used to be and how much more we like ourselves now. But I wonder when I started to open up my mind and move out of what was my comfort zone. Because now? That sort of zone makes me uncomfortable. Not necessarily the things these people think, which are all acceptable in their own way. Instead, I mean that I am now uncomfortable living that life and I'm not sure I can go back.

Maybe I need to stay farther away because it actually makes everything more comfortable.

I think it started to happen after I got married, in my final year of college. My friends would come over and we would argue, we would disagree, we would debate, and we would make brownies while watching Friends. But I started to change.

And it hasn't stopped.

I wonder what all those people think. It would be interesting to know, even though it doesn't matter.

Hmmm.