Have you, like Daniel, ever felt compelled to investigate something or someone from your past?

Daniel hears Nicola Janks's voice on the radio. This sets the entire story in motion. Have you ever felt compelled to investigate something or someone from your past?

I haven't, at least not in the compulsive way Daniel did. After saying this, I must say the capabilities of the internet, when searching or investigating, does make the past more readily looked into and is a temptation at times!

I have been curious about people from the past. With social media and just internet in general it is amazing what one can find out without doing much searching. We all are leaving quite an electronic trail.

I have occasionally wondered about what ever became of someone I knew long ago but have never really tried to track them down or search the internet for them. I guess that the present and the people of my present are interesting, demanding or just plain enough for me to deal with and enjoy or whatever.

Of course, as you grow older and you start to look back on your life, you want to know about those you cared about in the past. While raising a family, or working hard at a job there may not be time for reflection. But when you get older you reflect more and then there are questions of What if?

Yes, I have! The woman who gave birth to me felt that I didn't need to know the name of my father. Every story she ever told me about that person and their relationship was totally different from the previously told story.

So when I was nine, with the help of my Pastor, I began my own investigation only to discover that my suspicions were 100% correct - everything she told me was totally untrue. Once I was of age, actually after I graduated college with my bachelor's, I dug into the situation once again only to find that my original search was sufficient because there was nothing new to discover.

To this day, at the age of 58, I still do not know my father's name but I did learn that I was indeed illegitimate which has always made me wonder if he was even aware I existed! It helped me not to demonize the man - I had enough justifiable disturbing emotions considering my birth source and her treatment/mistreatment of me.

I am so happy that I did exactly what I did when I did it because it helped me immensely. It helped me to learn that I did not cause anything - that I was a child and was truly innocent of any wrong-doing and was not responsible for the mess that was the life/world of the woman whose insanity threatened my very life.

Knowing who you are is vital and knowing who you aren't is just as important! Peace of mind is truly priceless!

I think that is what facebook is all about! It is interesting to rediscover old high school and college friends as well as old boyfriends.

I have never been compelled to investigate something or someone from my past. Facebook has influenced me to reconnect with people from the past, through high school classmates, family members, etc.

Daniel feels this incredible urge to find out what damage he had done by leaving as quickly as he did not going back as he said he would, not knowing if Nicola was sleeping or dead.
Daniel, unknowingly, was carrying this feeling of guilt which surfaced when he heard Nicola’s voice.g
I have never left anything of significant importance unfinished in my life therefore I have never had this feeling.

I like the way Navy Mom put it. As I've grown older, I've felt the need to look back at significant people in my life with fresh eyes, from a more mature perspective, and find out what I can (for example, talking to a much older cousin about my parents, no longer living). But I've not felt the compulsion that Daniel felt, likely because none of it was a life or death question.

I've never gone to the extent of actually trying to track someone down in the flesh, but I have been known to Google former boyfriends, LOL!

I did have one experience where I did actually make the effort to find someone to contact them. I had an orchestra teacher in Junior High that had us learn part of Beethoven's 5th for our spring concert. It inspired a love of the piece, and when I heard the symphony last year I thought about her. I ended up contacting her through Linked-In to let her know what a huge influence she had on me, and how grateful I was. (Fortunately she had a very unique name.)

Of course.....and I have been able to reconnect with a few friends,,,very pleasantly. I have checked in with old teachers, girlfriends and boyfriends. Some with whom I have established interesting communication...others just made me sad and I decided not to pursue...only to think positive thought for their circumstances

Oh yes. I look up people I knew in college, especially when I hear they were famous for a time. I also have looked up people who played sports for my father's teams. It is fairly easy to do with some of today's media. Of course those who became known are easier. Just recently I reconnected with a high school friend who was interested in a high school reunion and I discovered has a blog.

I think Navy mom was close. As we get older, we wonder what happened to people in our past and maybe reconnect.

I have and it was disconcerting. For some reason, I had forgotten or misremembered parts of my childhood. I tried to piece together those events and it was challenging. People remembered the events differently so I had to wade through the stories to try to piece together a version that seemed most likely. The biggest difficulty is finding out that you just can't get enough information to complete the puzzle.

I've never felt compelled to do anything more than look for someone on Facebook, and I'm one of those oddballs that only logs into that 4 times a year or so.

I don't have any specific events I've felt the need to research in my past, but that could just be that there wasn't anything that mysterious?