“Wow. thank you so much for sharing this. You and I spent most of our days, 5 days a week, almost every week (excluding summers) for 9ish of our most formative years. And now I hardly know you....”

The prettiest girl in my elementary school (except, of course, for my wife) sent me that note in response to my personal contribution to the “25 Random Things about Me” meme that swept through Earth-F recently.

I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

Sarah and I only recently reconnected on facebook during a mass and pretty much spontaneous resurfacing of the Thomas K. Finletter Elementary School Class of 1982-ish, and I probably haven’t seen her since we graduated from the eighth grade in 1982.

We weren’t particularly close friends—but when you spend nine years (kindergarten through eighth grade) in a small elementary school with the same kids, you couldn’t exactly consider any of your schoolmates “distant” either.

What I primarily remember about Sarah is that she was smart, pretty, a great cellist, and that my best friend Adam had a crush on her for pretty much all of those nine years.

Still, that note knocked the wind out of me, because in my mind we were still pretty much the same people we were all those years ago.

They all look pretty much the same, instantly recognizable, yet strangely middle-aged even though my wife and I still look as youthful as ever. (I suspect they’re thinking similarly when viewing our pictures.)

Adam is the doctor he always knew he would be; Sarah is the musician we always know she would be; Perry and I still share our passion for 1980s-vintage video games.

And my elementary school pals have reminded me that certain elements of my personality have pretty deep roots:

“Never thought I'd see this! Perry, are you seeing what I'm seeing? He really does still have the Superman Suit.”

But inevitably, reality creeps in: the class clown is now an air-traffic controller who has been a foster parent to over a dozen kids over the years; since the last time I spoke to Adam, he’s divorced, remarried, and is two beautiful kids richer; Billy is no longer with us.

And I realize: as I live my life on facebook, the identity I have built for myself in the present is under gentle assault from my past.

So far, I don’t mind, even though my co-workers and fellow MCT friends are now notified anytime a new elementary school picture of me is posted, and my old friends have started to send me “just what the heck do you actually do?” messages when viewing our recent MCT Summit India posts.

No, I’m far more concerned with the surveillance from my present: my mom is now way too comfortable with Facebook and not only enjoys tracking my whereabouts but feels compelled to comment on them.

When touring the streets of Prague in the snow last month, a co-worker snapped a picture of my snow-covered head and uploaded it to Facebook. Within minutes, my mom texted me: “Get a hat!”

When I landed in Seattle after returning from India, I changed my status to “Ken has landed at Sea-Tac.” Mom was dialing within seconds.

When I started teasing the still-secret but very big and exciting community project we’re quickly putting together at work, I had to swear my wife and kids to secrecy, ‘cause I know my mom will comment if she finds out.

And I realize that as I live my life on facebook, I give up the privilege of selective privacy.

Every day my Facebook friends and I learn a little bit more about each other.

My fifteen-year-old daughter aspires to be a teacher and was surprised to read my confession that teaching rather than technology is my calling in life.

My kid sister and I each shared in our respective “25 Things” how much we miss each other despite the twelve-year age difference and 3,000 miles that separate us.

I have co-workers who are extremely cool people, whose updates I enjoy following and even commenting on, but who I don’t speak to at all in the office, except maybe for the typical elevator small talk.

And pretty much my entire circle of friends, relatives, and co-workers past and present have done their best to convince me that my daughter’s diagnosis that her father suffers from “Obsessive Fanboy Disorder” is pretty much on the mark.

I’ve always believed that my work-life and home-life have no boundaries, that the person I am at work isn’t that different from the person I am at home, the person I am with my friends, and the person I am in my community(s).

But Facebook is testing that belief, first shaking it and now, ironically, cementing it.

Much has been made of the “myspace/facebook” generation, and I’ve no doubt that my kids will grow up to have very different social habits and expectations after spending their youth living out loud.

But I wonder about the impact of social networks on my generation—when life-long habits are broken. When we’re well-aware of how they change our lives, and self-aware about how we adapt to them.

I’ve thought about the e-convergence of my lives a lot lately, and I’ve decided I kind of like it. I know some people who maintain separate Facebook accounts for home, work, and other purposes, but I’m enjoying the identity integration. Each re-connection with a former elementary schoolmate, high school friend, college friend, relative, mentor, or colleague resurfaces a bit of me that I’d forgotten, and I feel richer for it.

So I’m gonna roll with it for a while and enjoy the experiment.

Besides, I always have Born to Learn… so far my mom hasn’t found this blog.

Don’t tell her, okay?