BLASTS FROM THE PAST!

Today I reunited with an old girlfriend from college. The story goes something like this: 

We met freshman year, became fast friends and by the end of the year she decided to transfer to another school. Some mild drama ensued, we parted ways and never spoke again.

When I saw her "friend request" on Facebook I was surprised and a little reluctant. My first reaction was to remember the bitter taste left in my mouth from the way things ended. I had this idea about who she was and what she did to me.

But then I considered that I was being ridiculous. It was over 10 years ago and  it must've taken something for her to reach out after all this time. She was a good person who behaved immaturely...something we're all guilty of, especially at that age.

So, I confirmed her request and took it one step further by saying hello. After some initial catching up, she apologized for the way things went down. While it was good to hear her acknowledge that, the truth is I could barely remember what had happened. She sounded relieved and after some good ol' girl talk, we agreed to meet in person.

We just had the most amazing 3 hours catching up and connecting in a way I could've never anticipated. We realized some incredibly poignant similarities in our journeys and the timing of our reunion could not have been more perfect.

I'm so excited to have her in my life now. We are both so far from where we were and yet we have this great foundation to build on. I can already see what I would've missed out on had I casually dismissed her request. I have no doubt she's a lifer in my friend department.

What's really interesting is that I similarly reached out to my ex several weeks ago after 6 years of no contact.

We were always supportive of one another but our last interaction was a bit messy. I found out he was engaged and wanted to send my congratulations, but I held back for a while for fear of how he might react.

After drafting one very succinct email and mulling it over for several weeks, I finally got clear that my intention was simply to congratulate him. If that was my intention, it didn't really matter how he reacted. So with that, I finally pressed SEND.

He happened to be extremely gracious and mentioned that he had actually tried a few times to reach out over the years at an old email address. I was pretty floored. It hit home that so much of what we experience as reality is really our perception.

We've caught up some over the last few weeks and I recently confirmed his request to be Facebook friends. After all these years it's amazingly surreal to consider that we could be in each other's lives again as friends.

So the moral of these stories is...JUST PRESS SEND! Set your intention and take that leap of faith. Whatever the reaction, speaking the truth will give you closure and move you forward.

No matter what you have going on in your head about someone in your past, it's never too late to recreate the future.