Originally Posted by
Asorie
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.....
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.
who only recently came back!) are gone. Then I look at the little crews and cliques I was part of in 2005, or 2007, or whatever, and there's only a handful of us left from then too. Yet despite losing all those wonderful people and drifting apart from them, there's still people here I have so much time and respect for. 2013 EoFF is totally different from 2003 EoFF but I couldn't tell you when the change happened. It's still home.
