What, Me Worry?

Confession: I am a worrier. It’s an addiction that I just can’t stop. But admitting you have a problem is the first step in solving it. So I freely admit it. Look up “worrywart” in the dictionary and you’re likely to find my picture.

I worry about everything: getting to work, flights taking off (though ironically, not about the flying), getting into grad school, being a good person and almost everything else under the sun. It takes a lot of my time and energy to do all this worrying. Yet I continue to do so. “Why?” you ask. I have no idea.

Maybe it’s because Murphy and his law appear to be alive and kicking. Maybe it’s from my anal need/desire to have things perfect. Or maybe because it just gives me something to do. Whatever the reason, I need to stop. I recognize this.

So I am making an early New Year’s resolution; because, if you’re serious about it, why wait any longer? I will relax and let things happen and not worry. I will save myself the heartache and put my time and energy elsewhere–like my friends, my family, myself.

Old Friends

I’m not sure what it is, but lately many people have been coming back into my life from years ago. And there is just something about getting back in touch with an old friend. For whatever reason, you lost touch with these people, but having them back in your life is like a security blanket. Getting to know them again enriches your life. Something is to be said about reconnecting with your past.

The recent slew of contacts from my past began on my birthday. One of my dearest friends in high school emailed me to say happy birthday. She had looked at the calendar and remembered “Today is Cheryl’s birthday.”

Since then we have been emailing back and forth on our new lives, but also reminiscing about the past. Sometimes, it’s what happened last night. Somtimes, a memory from cheerleading days, high school classes, or things we did when we thought we knew what we were doing. I don’t think I can express how happy I am to have this friend back in my life. And she is not the only one.

A few weeks later, I got an email from a guy I went to elementary school with. We also went to the same high school. He married another girl from elementary school. And now we email each other to talk about what is going on in our lives. But inevitably we’ll find ourselves talking about grade school and the one teacher who was the bane of my existence but for him was full of good memories.

Then, through the marvels of friendster.com, I had people from grade school, high school, and college requesting that I add them as friends. So I did. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t talked to them in years, what matters is the experiences we had that made us friends in the first place. They can’t be erased or altered. They just are. And that means they really are your friends.

New friends can know you better, even be closer to you than your old friends, but it doesn’t mean that the people in your past aren’t important or valuable. There is something to be said about the people who know and understand you now, but there is also something to be said about people who can say “I knew you when…”

Once, all I wanted to do was move on and shut the doors to the past. Now, I want to reopen them. I want to reconnect with people I once knew and hope to know them again. It feels good to know that you haven’t been forgotten. It’s comforting to know what a positive effect you can have on someone’s life. Old friends are important too.