blast from the past

Some of you readers may know that I'm on Facebook. (I still have yet to see a MySpace page; being a woman of a certain age, I fear that merely clicking anywhere within TheirSpace will set off some sort of age sensor that will then send punishing electro-shocks through my mouse, accompanied by revolting visuals of stuff like emo-dudes in skinny jeans and hair gel and eyeliner and black nail polish, thereby teaching me a painful lesson to stick to more age-appropriate social networking sites like FB.) After having been tracked down by numerous former high school acquaintances, exes, and frenemies, I am constantly debating pulling my profile off and retreating to my default anti-social book- and cat-loving hermitlike ways. But still, the profile stands, and attracts people from my past.

This week, I was located by a certain ex of mine from about 15 years ago, with whom I had an extremely tumultuous relationship followed by a train-wreck end to the relationship. I harbored anger about things that happened for a good, oh, I guess 15 years or so. He's tried to contact me before, and rarely did I return the call. I just had nothing to say, and eye-rolling is not easily conveyed over the phone.

But something must have shifted in me emotionally, because this time when he found me on facebook, despite my initial impulse was a knee-jerk reflex to cringe and then run for cover, I thought about it. His email sounded nice; mature even (this is a BIG change). I didn't respond for a day. Next day, another nice email. Still, I just didn't know what to do. Do I want to blow this person off yet again, and hurt their feelings over something that happend over a decade ago? Did I want them back in my life, albeit only as a cyber penpal? Or maybe even a friend? I wrote back a short response, poking fun at his persistence and saying I'd be in touch when I wasn't traveling so much.

On the third day, another email, longer than the first two. He was genuinely excited and thankful that he had found me, and that I had responded. He was embarassed at so readily showing his anticipation at hearing back from me, and charmingly awkward in his writing. It made me feel genuinely ashamed that I had debated blowing off his earnest attempt at friendship, and ultimately, forgiveness.

So I called him today. We talked for an hour and a half. He was very much the same outwardly, same (almost comical) accent, same self-effacing sense of humor, same laugh. It was surprisingly nice to reconnect. Although my anger at what passed between us has diminished over the years, the scars from the experience remained, and we had never actually reached any level of friendship because of it.

I'm proud to say, we finally crossed that barrier. After reading his third email, I asked myself, am I really still angry at him, after 15 years? Is it benefitting me to still be angry? And does he deserve that, after all this time? We were both young, and both made mistakes. So right at the beginning of the conversation, which was only moderately awkward, I told him I'd finally moved past all of that anger, and was impressed by what I saw in his writing - that he's becoming more self-aware and taking responsibility for his actions, and seems like a good guy. So he audibly relaxed, although he told me he was nervous throughout the call and had been waiting all day for the phone to ring. Which was cute.

We just caught up with each other on what has passed in the decade and a half since we last saw each other, and reflected on the choices we'd made. He shared with me that after all these years, I'm probably still the person who got to know him best, and that what happened with us was his one big regret in life. Which makes me sad, of course, but he stopped me and said, "no, it had to happen. I'm sorry it happened to you, but I learned from it. And I paid for it, dearly. So I'm a better person for it having happened. Regrets aren't necessarily things that you wish didn't happen, just things you wish you handled better", or something to that effect. Wise words.

It's funny...I have friends, and I meet a lot of people and make friends relatively easily. What I don't do is keep friends easily. I have a requirement from those who want to be in my 'inner circle' - authenticity. I don't present myself as anything I'm not to others; I ask the same in return. (Ok, so maybe it's 'overshare' on my part, but whatever. It's part of my personality, and I choose to embrace it.) It's amazing how many people aren't authentic even with themselves, and are therefore completely unable to be authentic with others. These are the people you'll have a great time with out in a bar, maybe even have some semi-deep conversations with, then never hear from again. If that connection is authentic, sooner or later one of us should contact the other, right? I mean, I'm crap at keeping in touch, probably worse than most people. But I will say that the Electronic Age has made it easier. I'll shoot an IM or a text or a FB comment to someone I'm thinking of. And I think of my friends often. They may not know it, but people I really like, I have a hard time letting go of. My fabulous (and oft-missed) neighbors in Miami, co-workers in Pgh, my former neighbor in MD, certain classmates from design school...they're always circulating in my mind, especially when I need emotional support or wish I had a friend to share a fun moment with.

So the funny thing about it was, despite all the turbulent water under our bridge, I felt like my ex was really reaching out to me for friendship. Just looking for someone who understood him, and he knew that although I couldn't tolerate him at a certain time in my life, I understood him maybe a little better than he understood himself. I suppose he felt the need to have someone at that level of emotional intimacy in his life again, and thought of me. Whatever the reason, I'm glad he did, and I'm glad that I was a big enough person to stop holding onto that anger and look at the person he is now; not who he was then. And I know he's being authentic with me now, as he has nothing to lose; only my friendship to gain.

I guess it's no surprise that I have a few of my exes in my life, and they are really good friends. Sometimes when a relationship doesn't work out on one level, you've already invested so much energy in getting to know each other that it's a shame to walk away from it all. You really do build a friendship alongside the romance. It always takes time, but once the hurt over the death of the romantic relationship has passed, sometimes you can rebuild a very strong friendship, and move forward to a better future. I look forward to being friends with my ex, as clearly he sees me as a valuable friend, and nothing feels better than being valued by another human being who knows you well, and likes you anyway.