Wednesday
WORD — by Diane, The
RECONNECT
I recently have had several occasions to reconnect
with friends from either my childhood or teenage years. I have often wondered how they were doing and
where they ended up in their lives.
Two of the women were girls from grammar school. One contacted me through classmates.com. I was shocked to get an email from her.
I was absolutely delighted in our several hour phone conversation and continued emails. Julie, in turn, connected me to another mutual friend of ours Jayne.
Jayne and I also had a long phone conversation and
were so amazed at where our lives have taken us.
Both of
these ladies were very much part of my life and school years. We shared similar home situations and
realized how like attracts like. We all
had less than Ward and June Clever families.
What we came to believe is we all did mighty well considering our past.
What I found odd was that we didn't talk to each other for close to 30 years, but once we started talking, time stood still. The distance between the years seemed to close and it felt really nice to go down memory lane together. So many horrible childhood memories that were in my mind didn't seem quite so horrible anymore.
It became apparent that maybe my memory wasn't
quite as clear as I thought, or that it was a much larger drama in my mind than
it was in real life. Just having someone validate many of these experiences
took the sting out of them. Being the
mature women we are today, reaching 50 this year, we realized many of our
experiences were just part of growing up.
Julie and I decided we want to organize a reunion.
She lives just outside of
All of that talk and memories reunited my curiosity
to find an old flame of mine. I have been looking for Don many times in recent
years. I heard he had moved to
I wasn't sure if he would even remember me. In my mind I had dumped him to date my ex-husband. Would he forgive me for dumping him? Would he be nasty and just hang up on me?
I didn't know what would happen. But I got his number and with courage called it. The first time no answer. At first I felt safe. Ok... I tried. Maybe it wasn't meant for us to reconnect.
As the week went on my curiosity got to me. I had to call back, even if it meant that I
speak to his wife. What would I say? Heck, it really was an innocent call - an old
friend from high school just inquiring about how he was doing. Several of us were interested. (Although I admit, the others weren't quite
as interested as I was.)
I got up my courage and tried again. This time there was an answer and it was a
teenage girl. I asked for her Dad and she asked me who was calling. I just said
someone he had gone to high school with.
When he got on the line and I said who it was, he was so excited and
told me that over the years I had crossed his mind also. He had also tried to find out how I was when
he would go back to
We exchanged information regarding what has happened to us in the last 36 years, including the direction our lives had taken with marriages; in my case, divorce. And we talked about our children. It was amazing. Thirty-six years is a very long time, but the connection was just as fresh -- time again stood still.
I was a freshman in high school when we dated, and
he, a junior. He remembered some things I
had forgotten and vice versa. We have
had several really good laughs and shared some priceless memories. We exchanged photos of ourselves. I confessed that in my mind he will be
forever 17. He has aged, and of course, I
haven't.
We both agreed I hadn't dumped him for my Ex… It
was a mutual ending of the limited teenage relationship we had. It was nice to have the truth about what happened
instead of the limited fantasy I held in my mind.
The moral of this story is that each one of us
reached out to reconnect with another person who, at one time, was very
important to the other. We all had crossed
the others’ minds often over the years.
We have made a new connection and now can make new adult memories. It felt good to all of us.
Is there someone in your life who has been long out of the picture and has crossed your mind many times over the years? Have the courage to try to reconnect. You just might be surprised at the response you get back. I sure was.
— © Diane, The
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