Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Thinking a lot about the people, places and things I met, saw and did earlier in my life that left a distinct memory behind, and maybe even a huge impact on my life, that I lost touch with years ago. Life is funny that way, right? We work with people, see them every day, they become our best friends and we change jobs. Then never really keep in touch at all after that. We have a serious romantic relationship, often for years with someone. We share everything with them, and in the end it doesn’t work out – ad we go our own ways, often to seldom if ever speak to each other again. My life is littered with people who I have very distinct memories of, who meant a lot to me, and I have no idea where they’re at or what happened to them since I last saw them. Even people we went to school with, or grew up with as kids – our best friends back then – I have no idea what most of those people are doing these days, or what happened in their lives. One of the things social media can help with is finding and reconnecting you with someone from your past. That can be kinda awesome, to find out what happened to them and get to see what their life is like now. I’ve certainly reconnected with many people that way. But there’s always going to be those people you do a search for and get nothing, or you find them and they don’t accept a friend request. And if you’re like me, you wonder – why not? The only reason I wouldn’t accept a request from someone who I knew years ago would be if for some reason I really don’t want to be friends with them. It would have to have ended badly, for whatever reason. Even then I’d probably be curious enough to accept. I reconnected with a few people I decided to de-connect with over the years I guess. Kinda maybe brought back the reasons why we didn’t keep in touch. But I’m surprised when I start looking back at how many people there are that I have no idea where they’re at today – band members, girlfriends, co-workers, schoolmates, and I wonder… what was that about? They had their place in my life and I had my place in theirs and that was it I guess. And places… and things… I grew up in Oshkosh, WI. Still love that town, even though it’s totally different now. Feels like home. I went to Hawaii in 1982 with a band I was playing with at the time. I love Hawaii. Why didn’t I just stay there?… the gig ended I guess. But I have many memories of that time in my life, the people I was with and met… many I’m still in touch with, but many I am not. We all have people from our past, and places and things – I have very fond memories of cars I used to own, or guitars, or clothes… that have long ago passed through our lives but live on in our memories. And we are memories for countless other people as well. Distant memories for many of them. Where are they now? What happened? What was their role?… In some cases we’ll never know. I do hope that I left more positive memories than negative. I work every day to try to be the best person I can be and impact the lives of those around me in a positive way. And I love reconnecting with people. Usually. We probably all have a list we purposely walked away from as well. But life is funny, and people change. And no matter how much we want to control it, life will take us for a ride and people, places and things will come and go, and all we can do is try to enjoy whatever happens. Because the only thing we can truly control is now. Let’s be the best we can be in the present moment as much as possible, and impact the lives of others in the best way we can, knowing that nothing lasts forever, making each moment count, and leaving behind many happy memories for those we connect with…
