Revisiting the Past

Various events and circumstances have led to me being in touch one way or another with several old friends.

I have mostly made good efforts to keep in touch with people, but life sometimes just gets in the way. When opportunity presents itself, usually I try to re-establish contact. That’s a little intimidating for me. Okay, very intimidating for me. I mean, what if these people don’t remember me? A very likely possibility as I see myself as not being particularly noticeable. Or worse yet, what if they remember me? Again, another scary possibility, as I remember how I was when I was younger.

There is a reason, after all, I spent many of the last seven or eight years in intense self-reflection and self-examination, working a 12-step program, making amends, and figuring out why I do the things I do. One of the things I do is operate from a place of fear of rejection. And I sure do like for people to think highly of me. That’s a precarious place to walk when striking up old contacts.

But still I do. And because of all the self-growthy work I have wreaked upon myself, it has been more rewarding. I am more able to let it go if it doesn’t fly. Mostly.

So anyway. All these blasts from the past. I am talking way back. Grade school and junior high way back, and college, too. It’s a cause for reflection, desired or not.

There are specific remembrances that are pretty sweet. And not brought by me, interestingly enough, but I remember (usually) when names, places, and doings are brought up. I find that other’s memories of time spent with me wasn’t completely horrific.

There is some comfort in that. I am not kidding, either. My mind works that way.

With the renewing of friendships comes questions of ‘how did you get where you now doing what you are doing?’

Where am I? What am I doing? And how did I end up here? And how do I express that?
Hopefully without bile, because I am finally, and truly, grateful for the heartbreaking turn that I was forced to take that got me to look at myself. And got me to change things. And I would never have done that without getting dumped. At least I don’t think so.

I am at a place in my life where I can enjoy these friends on a level I could not before…so caught up in my distresses of emotional fear and needs. So there is redemption, too, in all of this.