So how is everyone doing?

[Teek]

I'm still way back, but I want to post a few things. Maybe I'll edit this after I finish reading this thread. How did I have the patience for these old threads? It's like fourteen conversations going on around you and you're supposed to keep them all straight.

I'm just scared. A lot of people here remember a very different and much stupider young me.

I understand this feeling exactly. I am often aware (and, unfortunately, often reminded) of my worst traits that I exhibited, not only on here, but that were going on simultaneously while I was on here. I remember a lot of events at that time I wish I could undo, or fix, or replace with something more positive, but that's the way of life, isn't it?

Knox, if you remember me (you SHOULD remember me), I only feel it's fair to point out that you're one of the few people that come up in conversation (mostly with BOU) about these ancient days, and when you're referenced you aren't seen as particularly any more negative as anyone else, so there's that. For what it's worth.

Other forums don't have you guys. So not much point.

Seriously, folks here are what got me through some really bad years. I don't know where I'd be without BOU, Teek, Scottie, Britt, Cid, Unne, Bleys, and others I am probably forgetting. It was damned good luck that I ended up here 14 years ago. There's just something special about this place.

Same here. I'd add a few names, but I still recall many of these people and I think of them fondly. It was extremely important for me then.

I think it's hard for a lot of us to reconnect with people we used to be really close to, even when the parting was on good terms, for some of the same reasons you go by a different name now -- we're all different people than we were five or ten or fifteen years ago, to a greater or lesser extent. Time goes by, some joys and heartaches fade into the past or are dwarfed by greater concerns, and life whacks you over the head another ten or twenty times with change or loss or unexpected developments...all of a sudden you look back and realize you don't really understand that person you used to be, anymore. And you realize you've grown in a lot of ways, but in doing so, to move forward, you have had to give up a lot of the once-familiar common ground you shared with people as who you used to be.

This is how I think of it sometimes -- some of these people, here, and some who aren't here now, but with whom I have reconnected in other ways, saw me as the least likable version of myself I can thus far recall having been. And even before I had had a chance to learn equanimity, or tact, or break out of the tiny little backwards world I had grown up in, even at my most mercurial, insecure, and least stable, they were still my friends. I could come here and have silly, carefree fun, and also have real conversations about things that actually mattered, and no one would bounce me out the door for being the pathetic teenager I was.

So think about all that and consider that this many years later, some of that still exists -- there are still people who, no matter how much you may cringe thinking of your past self, remember you fondly enough to say, "Hey, where's ____?" and notice if you're missing.

Yes, exactly. You summed up the dilemma perfectly. It relaxes me considerably.