the advice you didn't ask for...

So, here's my advice (that you didn't ask for) and with the caveat that you should 'beware of anyone offering advice'.

The advice is this: get in touch with a friend you haven't seen for years.

It's always a little anxious making to do that (one reason people avoid high school and college and family reunions). Sure you used to love them but, gosh/gee, time has passed and you aren't who you were and they aren't who they were and what if these new folks don't have the same connection and magic they used to have? I got it. And that is true. And it may be like trying to be intimate with a stranger.

But I've had a couple of experiences lately--one by email and one in person--encountering folks I haven't been with for years (from 5 or so to 25 or so) and it's been really great. Seamless, really, back to the same place though we're in a different place altogether.

I am the reigning world's champion at 'not keeping in touch'. My personality allows me to have serial friendships. My closest friends are old ones, but I don't do well making sure I keep the friends I had because I always make new friends.

I'm going to take my own advice (and even I didn't ask me for advice!) and keep up with those two and figure out how to contact some more 'old friends'. Maybe it's my advancing age that wants to recapture the past or maybe it's just that a friend is a terrible thing to leave behind.

I'm pondering friendship these days. It's not a bad thing to wonder about....