About a week ago, I met with one of my best friends from high school. Alycia and I hadn't seen each other since either 2008 or 2009 (we couldn't really remember--I know it was summer and I was between years at college, but I'm just not sure). Either way, it'd been a long time since we'd seen each other, since we'd made the time to see each other.
In the past few weeks, I'd been thinking about Alycia--and really, all my friends from high school--a lot. I know everyone has moments where they search for their ex on Facebook or someone they used to speak to. The weird thing about social media is our ability to find people we used to spend all our time with and see the highlights of their life: the vacation pictures, their status updates, their #humblebrags about work outs and more. Social media can make it easy to keep grudges alive or to keep someone at a distance while still obsessively following their life trajectory.
There have been a lot of friends I've left behind: people I used to talk to all the time, or see everyday, that I just stopped speaking to. Sometimes, it was because of a falling out, a disagreement, or a sudden, mutual dislike. For whatever reason, being pregnant has really made me reconsider my behavior in the past.
I'm definitely a grudge holder and a bit of a negative Nancy at time--not two of my most positive traits. I also tend to assume that if someone stops speaking to me, or stops replying to me, it's because I'm an awful person. This is most likely untrue (although I'm sure in some cases people really do either forget about me or just not like me that much). There are people I still don't ever want to talk to or think about... but I'd say overwhelmingly I miss a lot of the people I used to consider best friends.
It's also very easy to forget that sometimes people just move on and change. There are people I used to be best friends with (as a child, or in middle school) that I still think of very fondly, but I realize we are in very different places or just very different people. The things that made us friends, that we had in common, have changed dramatically--and while it would be possible to be friendly, reconnecting and having the relationship we once had would be impossible.
That being said, there are people that I wish I could still speak to--friends who always gave me great advice or listened when I was sad, friends who were talented and passionate. I miss them a lot, but for whatever reason, attempts to reach out to them never work out or fall apart. We're just different people, I guess, and as hard as that is, it's just a natural part of getting older and growing up.