eurydicebound

I have, believe it or not, made a number of stupid decisions in my life. A lot of them are resurfacing this year, it seems, seeking resolution. I'm actually not unhappy about this, as it means I get finaly put some of this stuff behind me. I'm finally in a place where I can start redeeming some of these debts, and that is overall a very good thing.

One of these things that I feel lacking in is old friends I've sort of left behind. I was realizing the other day that some of the people I think of as "friends" are people I haven't talked to in four years or more. At one move or another I left them behind and really didn't look back much... the situations that had brought us into long-distance contact in the first place were either no longer present or had never been particularly strong to begin with, and so keeping in touch ended very shortly after our physical proximity did. Oklahoma and Albuquerque are where I feel the losses the most: less so in OK than ABQ, as we moved back to OK and did try to make contact with those friends more than once over the years, without reciprocation or significant interest on their part.

The friends in Albuquerque, though, were always pretty dear to me. A few of them I'm still in pretty good contact with,

iavasthul included. Some I likely won't be speaking with again, possibly ever, and that makes me very sad. Some just sort of drifted away... a few before we moved, a few more after. The group of friends that was present when we moved there has long since splintered and diffused. I'm not sure I'd want to recreate it... there were elements of that group that were not all that healthy for the people involved. I miss the individuals, though. Pretty much all of them. They were a big part of my life for a number of years, undoubtedly more than any of them realized, and certainly more than I told any of them. The group dynamic was such that any such efforts at explanation would probably have been misinterpreted, or at least not understood. *shrug*

While I can't take all the blame for letting contact with these people slide, some of it is most certainly mine. It's one of the things that bothers me, as I get older and friends seem harder to spontaneously make. Very soon I'll be single, and any friends I make here will be post-marriage... somehow it seems important to me now to reconnect with people who knew me during the marriage as well. In the spirit of reconnecting, therefore, and redeeming past mistakes, I Googled until I managed to find a couple of those friends who had dropped off my radar. I composed and sent emails giving the general updates in my life and David's, and let them know that I missed them and would like to reestablish contact with them again, if they were interested.

Of course, part of me feels like I've done a really stupid thing. After all, if they were interested in talking to me, wouldn't they have made an effort too? Am I seeing more than was actually there? Should I have just taken the hint and let things go? To be honest, I've got no clue. In any case, it's too late now to take the emails back. :) What I do know, though, is that I'd feel better having vague news and chances to see these people than not. If it takes a little extra effort on my part... well, so be it. I'm the one who stands to benefit, anyway.