Reconnect With Yourself

There are times in your life when you find you just have to sit back, keep silent and observe everything going on around you in wonder. This last week has been one of those points in time for me. The week brought me multiple opportunities to reconnect with people from my past. It allowed me to rekindle friendships that had never died, but lay smoldering, waiting for the wind to ignite the flame once again.

We had a birthday party for my sister. In over 30 years she’s never had a real birthday party for her. We invited our current best friends as well as our best friends from high school. I invited a woman who lived with me for a couple months after I was on my own just out of high school. She had 3 children and was in the process of leaving an evil abusive husband.

It has been over 20 years since I have seen or spoken with some of these women. Time and life, as usual, came between us. We didn’t part ways, only went separate ways. Different roads brought us to different places, but once again the roads merged again to become one. When you reconnect with people in this manner, the friendship becomes even stronger than before.

This has been a week to return to my roots. It brought me back to the late 80s and early 90s when I was barely a teen and just beyond. I was naive and young. There was so much of life yet ahead of me and I had no clue where I was going. Because of my father’s early death I was a more responsible teenager than most. I was an adult before my time.

As I began to reconnect with them, I could feel myself going back to that time period and feeling the same emotions I felt back then. If my high school crush had shown up at that moment, I think I might have even felt the same crazy heart palpitations I used to get when I saw him.

After the party I uploaded all of the pictures I had taken from the party to the computer. And, I sat there in silence contemplating the day. I was remembering all the genuine bright smiles on all of our faces. There was true friendship and love between us all. If you could put a name to the energy the place held, it would be “JOY”.

I sat there replaying the day in my head. In my heart I could still feel the excitement I had felt when I saw my old friends. My heart leaped as if they had been my high school crush. The emotions are real. True friends never die no matter what comes between them. Time, life, distance or relationships, none of these can prevent it when it is time to reconnect again.

And, in reconnecting with these people from days past we also reconnect with ourselves. I reflected on the person I was, and realized the difference in the person I am now. Both are good people. The me of my past and the present version of me are both kind, generous, loving women. Each had qualities and faults. In 20 years I have changed.

But looking back over the last twenty years I can see that I have much to be grateful for. There are many friends to be thankful for.

I have been loved. I am loved. And I also love. In reconnecting I found a part of me I can learn to love again. She wasn’t gone. She was just waiting inside of me to be rediscovered.

Isn’t it time for us all to reconnect with ourselves?