Reconnecting After 20 Years:My Long-Lost Friend

[Ivan Seeking]

Have you ever made contact with an old friend not seen for many years? Today I talked with my very first friend in life. We first started playing together at the age of one year. When I was in my late teens, when my family left S. Cal, Dave and I lost contact up until today. I did see him for about an hour, twenty years ago, but not at all since. It was really great to talk with him again. He knows and remembers things that no one else on Earth would except me. He was my closest friend for about fifteen years.

But I have grown weary of long lost friends. Not long ago I made contact with a couple of old friends who, as it turned out, both had serious mental problems. A girl with whom I grew up now has severe bipolar disorder. The other apparently got into some bad drugs after college. On both counts it was really depressing to spend time with them. Rick actually thought that the TV was giving him secret messages! Though quite brilliant [a registered genius], he was always on the edge, even in college, but it was very sad to see how bad he had gotten in the course of fifteen years. In fact it was most upsetting and depressing.

A person who is now one of my better friends, a guy in his fifties, once commented that of all of life's lessons, the transient nature of our relationships in life has been the greatest surprise. And I knew what he meant as soon as he said it. When we are very young we think that the people in our lives will always be there. But soon the work-a-day reality of life sets in, and one day we realize that we haven't talked with a former best buddy or school friend in twenty years or more.

So, I guess people tend to come and go in our lives; that's just how it is. Also, there is a big difference between friends, and people that you happen to know, or work buddies. We are in fact very lucky to make even one or two life long friends.

 

[AngelShare]

A few months ago, an elementary school friend called to talk. It was nice talking to her again, she's a good friend.

I had another friend in elementary school that I was around almost all the time. I loved her, her sister, and her parents, a rare thing these days...there's always something wrong somewhere ...anyways, they moved to Connecticut when I was in about second grade. They called once...I forgot to get their number and they never called again.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I had a great reunion with a childhood/high school/college friend who moved back to the states after having lived in France for a few years. He, his French wife, and 4 year old daughter moved to a city about 200 miles away from me which was close enough for long weekend visits three or four times a year till I finally moved away here to California.

A couple years ago I looked up another friend we had and called him. He was merely cordial, didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about reminiscing, and never answered a follow up letter I sent.

About 5 years ago I got interested in getting in touch with a woman I used to know in Minneapolis about 20 years ago. It turned out, strangely, she had moved to San Diego shortly after I did and lived in the next neighborhood over. We've gotten together for coffee and dinner a few times but she has switched from being a basically art oriented person to a full blown computer geek. Everything she says now is geek to me.

 

[wolram]

I lost my best friend when i stopped him from kicking seven bells out of his wife, she was a -----------, but i could not see him hurt her, he moved from
the area, and i have not seen him since, 30yrs of friendship down the drain
in 10 minutes.

 

[BobG]

I lost my best friend when i stopped him from kicking seven bells out of his wife, she was a -----------, but i could not see him hurt her, he moved from
the area, and i have not seen him since, 30yrs of friendship down the drain
in 10 minutes.

Good for you. When I was younger, I always had a problem with things like that - where a friend has done nothing bad to me, but their relationship with their wife and kids changed my opinion of them and I wasn't sure how to deal with it. I'd wind up practically contriving a fight between us so that I'd feel I had a legitmate reason to break up the friendship. That's a little too round about way to handle the problem in my opinion.