Reminiscing.........and Regretting

I was searching on MySpace for old friends that I am no longer in touch with and it kind of depresses me. I don't have a MySpace account so I'm just lurking without the privilege of actually looking at photos or being invited on people who have their profiles set to private. I look at people I went to high school and college with and I can't believe how much (or how little) they have changed! Where did all the time go?

It will be 8 years tomorrow since my high school graduation. I retained ONE friend from my graduating class - I guess I could count another person but we don't really stay in touch; she did send me a wedding gift, though (THANKS, Joey!). I'm not sure how to feel about this. In high school, I was kind of a floater in that I didn't really hang with a specific crew, although I technically only saw a few people outside of school which really defines friend when you get older. After graduation, I kept in touch with about 7-8 friends, but they all kind of fell off and I am THE ABSOLUTE WORST at following up even if I think about a person all the time.

Once I started college, I had a whole new set of friends who I related to better than I have ever related to a group of people in my life. I'm sure I'll never have that opportunity again. These kids grew up just like me; people who were always one of few or the only Black person among their group of friends and in school. I formed an immediate, special bond with about 5 or 6 people and we were pretty much inseparable. Then, I decided to leave school and move back home. At first, we kept in touch like nothing had changed, but this eroded over time as I was up North and not coming down every weekend, and they continued to live their lives and finish school down South. Before I knew it, I was only in touch with 1 or 2!

I guess what I'm getting to is that I'm kind of mad at myself for letting distance grow from people I would really like to still be in contact with, even if it would only be online. It's my fault that I didn't care enough at the time to just check in every once in a while to make sure that line of contact remained open, no matter how small.

To all my friends out there, I miss you, maybe one day we'll reconnect.