reconnect with old friends

I’ve had a lot of people come in and out of my life. Some I were glad to see come, some I were glad to see go, and some I never wanted to see leave. Well, the ones that left, I want you to come back!!!!!

- B. Cabral
- J. Kelsey
- A. Gallagher-Rogers (update: I found out that she went to MIT and works for NASA now?? I grew up with a rocket scientist!)
- J. Fornier
- S. Thomas

Where arrrrreeee you? I hope you’re all well, regardless.

I’ve reconnected with two old friends and have been seeing them on a regular basis. One I invited over to dinner at my new place in a couple of weeks. This should be interesting (since I’m hardly a cook!) I should start preparing now so we don’t end up eating take out.

...has moved forward much latetly.

I think I’ll go onto sites like classmates and facebook. Not sure if my friends will be on there, of course.

Connecting with old friends is easy in facebook, at least thas my experience. I like it better than email or a sending that birthday card and christmas card.

Just in the past year I flew across the country to visit my best friend from 15 years ago, I had a friend come visit me whom I haven’t seen since elementary school, and I started e-mailing an old friend from junior high whom I haven’t spoken to in about 6 years. It’s great to reconnect with these people from my past and see where we all are with our lives now.

Thanks Facebook..! Found some of my old school friends on there and we’re arranging meeting up for a few drinks and a shitload of catch-up! Amen. Mission accomplished! :)

I have burned a lot of bridges with friends. Well, not so much burned them, but rather abandoned them. I tend to just lose contact with my friends, not by any conscious intention, but… it just seems to happen. It starts with not calling or emailing them back for a few days… then the days become weeks… and then before I know it, not spoken to them for so long has made me feel guilty enough that I’d rather just continue to avoid them.

It doesn’t make sense, I know… the whole thing ties in with a general avoidance problem of mine that really doesn’t make much sense at all. And these days I’m putting a lot of effort into fixing the problem, so it only makes sense that reconnecting with old friends I have lost touch with (mostly by my own doing) should be one of the steps.

I’m not going to try to resume relationships with every one of them… perhaps just the friends I really miss and would like to have in my life again. I have one very good friend – at least we were best friends for about eight years, from ages 12 to 20 – with whom I somehow managed to fall out of touch about two years ago. There was some tension between us when I met the guy to whom I’m now engaged, but we seemed to be working it out… and then at one point I just never returned one of her phone calls. I kept meaning to; I just didn’t do it. I finally contacted her months later and she never responded.

Being in a relationship, I found that my boyfriend pretty much met my social needs and I didn’t “have” to have a best friend, aside from him—but I always missed her and wished we could somehow get back to the friendship we’d had.

Recently, her mom died very unexpectedly. I heard about this through the grapevine, as we’re still not in touch with one another, and I really wished I could do something to support her but didn’t know if there was any appropriate way to do so, seeing as we weren’t close anymore. I finally decided to send her a care package of sorts… a local newspaper article I thought she would be interested in, and a random funny item that I won’t even try to explain here. They were just things that reminded me of her and that I thought might offer some humor therapy if she needed it. But I did write her a card as well in which I tried to express my feelings – though not really knowing what to say; I can barely imagine losing a parent – and let her know that I’m thinking about her. I really hope she receives it well and I’d love it if she responded, but I’m not expecting her to. I just want her to know that despite having neglected our friendship very badly, I still care about her….

Before I check off this goal – which seems like almost an impossible dream right now! – I definitely want to do everything I can to reconnect with that friend. If she doesn’t want to, I can understand that—but I at least want to try. I also want to get in the habit of staying more in touch with my one other good friend, especially since he’s moving to the opposite side of the country soon… and I’d also like to try reconnecting with a few other old acquaintances and see if there’s the potential for friendship there. I may be introverted and I may have a significant other but that doesn’t mean I don’t need friends….

But over the last few months I’ve reconnected with some of my closer friends from my past. It’s an amazing feeling to see someone i haven’t seen in years and feel like we can just pick up where we left off.

Spent the day with an old friend this weekend and then had dinner with another friend. It was great to catch up.

I’ve managed to reconnect with a few old friends, thanks to MySpace. Not just an occassional email, but actually getting together to do stuff frequently. They’re some of my best friends again!