Haven't we all wondered about someone from our past? "I wonder if he ever got married." "I wonder where she lives." "I wonder what he looks like now." "I wonder if she's happy." Now you can find out using the internet.

Jill's tale goes all the way back to the prehistoric days of 1974 when she, a wild child, decided to go to Mexico:

"I met Juan, and we hit it off instantaneously. For 10 days we were inseparable. We both thought it would go on forever, but after a week and a half his parents called him away to handle a family emergency."

Juan said he'd be back in a few days, but Jill didn't hear from him for over a week. "I was young and stupid, and I was playing way too hard," she said. "The week before I was to go home, I got a telegram from him saying he loved me and he'd write me at home.

"I can't take back those things I did in his absence, and I was terrified he'd find out. I figured I'd never hear from him again, but he did write. Either he didn't know about what I did or he didn't care. I never knew which it was."

Jill and Juan wrote each other regularly for two years. Then there was a gap in communication for a few months. He finally wrote to say he'd been in a car accident, had back surgery and dropped out of medical school. He didn't know what his future would hold. They stopped writing each other.

"Two years later I decided to call him. I had a half-crazy idea of visiting him, but I screwed that up, too. After that, I'd write to him every couple of years to apologize for being an idiot and tell him I hoped he was happy. I got no responses."

Eventually, Jill got married, but that didn't work out. She admitted: "The marriage fell apart for the same reasons I had trouble sustaining other relationships. It wasn't until many years later that I finally understood what people had been telling me all along: If you don't like who you are nobody else can fix you."

It's been many years since Jill last talked to Juan. She decided to Google him. "I'm fully aware that the only reason I think so well of him and had longed to see him again is that we didn't spend enough time together for things to get ugly."

Jill didn't find him, but she did find his brother. She wrote him and asked him to send her greetings to Juan. He responded saying that Juan had died 12 years prior.

"I was floored. There's a part of me that thinks Juan is still alive, but doesn't want to contact me. If Juan is dead I want proof. I'm trying to figure out how to get a copy of his death certificate. The part of me that's not the idiot I was in the 70s realizes this is nuts. I hope he's still alive and is just not ready to talk to me.

"I'm more in shock still than I am grieving, although I locked myself in the bathroom at work today and was finally able to cry about it. I don't even know what to call what I'm feeling."

Have you Googled any old lovers or looked them up on Facebook?

Got a problem? Send it, along with your questions and rants to [email protected]. And check out my e-book, "Dear Cheryl: Advice from Tales from the Front."

Photo credit: Marco Verch