I spent a year almost completely off of facebook recently. It was a peaceful experience. At the end of the year, I then deleted my entire account, thinking that I wouldn’t miss it at all after being offline for that long. But I did.

As soon as the whole account was gone, I started to think: did I just disown my whole past? All my pictures stored in the account, many of which were otherwise lost to the digital ether, are now gone. All the folks I knew from past years but didn’t talk to regularly are now effectively lost to the present unless I do some serious sleuthing. And all the folks I’ve met over the past few years and want to be friends with, it’s hard to connect with now. It feels as though my ambient connection to the broader social world was somehow lost.

But now, I find myself thinking more fondly of folks from my past as they cross my mind. Sure, I can’t just look up how they are doing today on facebook and spy on their spouses who I met once or twice a decade ago and their kids who I’ve never met and probably never will meet. Or peek into their current hobbies and daily struggles, stories, and vacation photos. But now that I can’t see how far their futures have diverged from mine, I feel closer to them. I just have the memories of the times we spent together in real life to keep me company. And I somehow find those memories more peaceful and heartwarming than the photos of their actual lives as they live them today.

Don’t get me wrong, I think I would like to be a part of their lives today even more than I like to have the memories of them. Perhaps an annual video chat or at least to get on their holiday card circulation list. But until I regain the nerve to cold-call my high school study buddy from two decades ago, the memories are pretty enjoyable.