Connecting With Past Friends
NOW is the best time to let old friends know you miss them.
Next year will be the twentieth anniversary of my graduation from high school. It feels so weird to type that statement. In some ways, it doesn't feel so long ago. Although genetics do not have much to offer me, I am fortunate to look young. But when I glance into the mirror, I barely see the teenage girl I was then. I have deep scars now, but I'm wiser. I lost my idealism, but I'm pragmatic. I have lived through some difficult situations I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. I needed to travel away for nine years to discover how much I missed my life back home. I've struggled and learned that I can only count on myself. I love the assertive, self-assured woman I've become. But I have changed a lot, which inadvertently has caused me to lose touch with much of the world. There is an anxiety that gnaws away at me. Do my former friends judge me because I'm divorced? Would my old friends even want to befriend the Amanda I am now? I don't know if there is enough of the old me left. I feel guilty, but sometimes it feels safer and easier to make new friends who will only know the current me.
About a week ago, one of my old friends reached out. As I remember, we were good friends during the last few years of high school. During the senior high, I noticed a few people were eating lunch alone and invited everyone to eat…
