Sentimental

Perhaps it's the New Year, or that my daughter will be turning a whole year old tomorrow, but I'm feeling so sentimental tonight.  I started browsing through old photos, and reminiscing.  One thing has become clear: I have a tendency to cut ties with almost everyone along the way.  I have so few people from high school or college or... any other phase of life... that I maintain regular contact with.  It makes me sad.

Looking back at high school, the people I thought would be friends forever are now strangers whose pictures occasionally pop up on my Facebook feed.  The boys I dated (or always thought I could) are all married.  Many have babies and lives I never could have dreamed they'd have.  And I just think of how high school and college were these great crossing grounds where so many diverse lives crossed paths never to truly intersect again.  (Yes, I know it's a little dramatic, but I'm hormonal and sentimental).  We were at these points just waiting for our lives to really start.

But what really bothers me, is how many of them are still in touch with each other.  Maybe the crossroads theory isn't that great.  Maybe I was the only one passing through.  There are so many people that touched my life in such meaningful ways.  From grade school friends, to high school friends, to college friends.  Yet, I haven't talked to most of them in years.

I look back, and I can see why.  It took me so long to get to a point where I was comfortable with myself.  I spent half of my high school career trying to hide from everyone, and the second half trying to act overly confident and outgoing (in my own awkward way).  In college, I had so many friends, but I was a rebellious, opinionated little thing.  I let go of the relationships from my past that had made me who I was, then felt my new connections couldn't understand me because they hadn't been where I'd been.  In graduate school, I was in pure survival mode.  Thank God for Mike.  I don't think I would have survived without Mike.  Then here I am.  I live in a relatively new town, hours away from anywhere I've been before, in a career that makes it hard to establish friendships through work due to working in different buildings all the time, and still bogged down with my high school insecurities.

Maybe my Thirties will be better?