Wrong

There is a possibility that I've been wrong. I don't like it but I'm entertaining the thought. I have in my head a friendship blueprint. I'm not sure exactly when it became a certainty to me, but I have aways believed all friendships follow the plan in my head. The basic outline says that we meet, enjoy each other, get busy, leave and forget each other. It's fairly simple and uncomplicated--until now.

Recently I was discussing one of my very best friends, C, with Tolkien Boy. I've known this friend since I was nine, and we were very close throughout my growing up years. After I got married, I lost contact with him. I saw him once, about six years later, at our ten year class reunion. We sat together, reminisced, enjoyed each other's company, then parted again for a very long time. TB asked if I knew where C was. I said no, but thought I could find him. I did, and sent C an email. I didn't think he would respond.

He did respond. C said this:
"You can imagine how I might be a little stunned to get this email after 10 years, but what sends chills up my spine, is the amount of time I spent thinking about you this afternoon before I saw this e-mail. And it wasn't even, "Oh, I remember getting beer bottles thrown at us for creative hair styles in R on a Speech Tournament," (the beginning of my activist career). I remembered further back to the fourth or fifth grade (You were the cutest thing I had ever seen in my 10 year old life.) when you noted that you could tell if someone paused for spelling insecurity while writing in cursive. Of course that lead to wondering how your career in classical music was going. Now you have quenched my curiosity, and reinforced that ESP theory explored in Mr. I's Psychology class."

So now I've contacted two people from my past. Both welcomed me back, both still remembered me--even thought of me once in awhile. So I'm wondering if my theories about friendship are flawed, and if my friends went away because I wanted them to, or because I left them. It's an interesting thought, one I've never considered. I don't know.

I'm trying to figure all this out. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the communications I'm having with both my friends from the past, and am so excited to connect with them again. Advice? Thoughts? Ideas? At this point I'm rewriting my blueprint and will accept pretty much any offered help.

I may have been wrong, but, in TB's words: "This is a good wrong." That makes no sense, but I know what he means. The payoff has been kind of amazing.

P.S. I took a vacation from blogging this week. For the first time since I began blogging, I went more than one day between posts. Five days later, I might be ready to write again. I sort of miss the daily blog-grind. :)