Week 12: taking risks--humor, exaggeration, juxtaposition

The other day I discovered, the hard way, that a cyber family, much like a real one, develops over time and acquires unique lifelike qualities. It happened when I found in my inbox letters from people suggesting that I will update, fix, resolve duplicates and respond to birthdays. I don’t know them, I don’t believe we ever met in real life or otherwise. My carful and polite inquiries as to our relationship did not produce satisfying results, and then it dawned on me. 

It happened when so and so (whose name is completely unfamiliar) wanted to merge with me…merging with a complete stranger would seem rather hasty, and quite peculiar, to every normal person except those surfing on Geni (an online family tree creator). And so without further ado I ‘approved’ the procedure which granted me access to his tree with hundreds of new relatives.

So far so good until I noticed, few months into it, that these people I opened my heart and family tree to, are inching, ever so slowly, into my nicely organized creation contaminating it with their inaccurate information and endless requests . Franticly I tried to unmerge and almost like in real life, found that merged tree cannot be severed without destroying the whole tree.  

***

The whole thing started more than three years ago when one night, on a wild impulse, I keyed- in my name into the Google search box, pressed enter and came up with nothing.

It was a terrifying moment I do not care to relive.

I can still sense the cold chill, the feeling of deep limitless emptiness, being overcome with the pressing need to send my hand and reach out, call aloud, anything to relieve the panic.

  It was the first time I really understood the phrase ‘if you are not on the internet you do not exist’. I cursed myself for giving up to the cheap temptation, seeking fake reassurance of myself in the huge limitless cyber space, but it was already too late.

And so about three years ago, in the middle of the night, I did the only thing I could do to alleviate the situation and ‘created’ myself.

I was not as difficult as I originally feared.

All I had to do was to let go of the old notion that the mere fact that I breathe, sleep, eat, and see my reflection in the mirror, and other people eyes, is a sufficient proof of my existence. Instead I pressed on the empty rectangle box in the center of the computer screen and typed my name in –

 Ariela Levia Bilitzer Zucker, born – and for all we know still alive.

I kept typing and inserting other names; my parents, my husband, my children, and in front of my eyes like some sort of magic, my family, with me in the center, was coming alive.

Blue rectangles for the men, pink rectangles for the women (what else) many lines running horizontally and vertically connecting them all to one elaborate net, growing and growing and filling the screen.

The sense of relief was immediate and so rewarding.

When I last checked, my family tree (on Geni) had 543 people; out of which 355 blood relatives (the computer never lie) 18 ancestors and 5 decedents.

 I passed my eyes over the elaborate constellation, created mostly by me. I looked at names most of which are fourth cousins twice, trice or even four times removed. People I don’t know, will never know, and frankly don’t even care to meet.

Still in the middle of the night when the quiet disturbs my sleep and all by myself I surf, I am surrounded by my cyber family, I exist.