I admit it: I'm 38 years old and I have a Facebook page.

Originally, I set the page up to share photos and life happenings with my family and close friends. I'm terrible at writing letters and worse yet at actually getting them mailed, so I thought having a page where I could post photos right away and send out blanket announcements about my family was a good option for me.

As time went on, though, people I hadn't seen -- or thought of -- in years started contacting me via my page. When that happened, I would add them as friends and take a look at the friends they had on their lists. Inevitably I would find someone on those lists that I had known and was curious about, so I would ask to add them so I could see pictures of them and what they had been up to.

Today, I have 158 friends.

It's actually pretty cool, this Facebook thing. One of my recent friend adds was my best friend from kindergarten. I met Jenny on the first day of school at Wantage Elementary in Sussex, New Jersey, in 1975.

Jenny was an orphan. Her parents had died in a car accident when she was a baby, and she lived with her grandmother. I'd never know my biological father. At the time I lived with my mom, my grandmother, my twin sister and my uncle. I felt an instant kinship with Jenny because neither of us had the "traditional" family.

Where I was painfully shy, Jenny was bold. She would say anything to anyone. She was kind of naughty, which I liked because I wasn't.

Once at school, we were making Christmas tree pictures out of yarn, glitter and dried beans. Jenny proceeded to jam a bean in her ear, and ended up having to have it surgically removed.

Her reasoning for doing such a thing?

"I was bored."

Wow!

Jenny and I became fast friends and were buddies until I moved to Michigan the summer after second grade. My mom had met and married the man who would eventually adopt us and become my dad, and since he worked in construction we had to go where the jobs were.

My family would travel back to the East Coast every summer for several years after that, and I would usually spend at least a night or two with Jenny. We wrote letters and called one another once in a while.

The last time I spoke to Jenny was in the summer of 1984 when we were home on vacation. After that, contact dropped off.

Somehow, I found her on Facebook. She was so excited; apparently, she'd been trying to find me, too.

Turns out she graduated from high school in New Jersey, went to college in North Carolina, then got married and moved ... to Indiana.

Yep, she's been in my backyard since 1991.

Well, not really in my backyard. She lives in the Hammond/Merrillville area, which I guess is about three hours away. But it's a heck of a lot closer than the 16 hours apart I thought we were.

It's amazing ... the last time Jenny and I talked we were debating The Police vs. the Go-Go's. Now we're talking about our husbands, our teenage children and what we do for a living.

But somehow, when I look at pictures of her, I still see Jenny as a little girl. She has the same impish smile, glittering eyes and mischievous streak.

She may be all grown up, but I still think Jenny might stick a bean in her ear if she got bored.