Past Friendships

(First of all, it's been like five days since I posted.  I had every intention of posting yesterday, but apparently fate decided it would be a good idea to injure my finger.  Typing was too much of a hassle yesterday as I had to do it without using my left index finger.  It still hurts a little, but typing's much easier, so I'm finally posting.)

Sometimes I'm just sitting around thinking about the past, and I get a strong urge to contact some of the people I used to be friends with as a kid and no longer speak to.  I don't necessarily have the urge to talk to everyone I know.  There are a couple of people that I have no problem leaving their friendship in the past.  However, there are several people I used to be friends with that I miss so much that I just wish I could call them up and talk to them again.  The really strange thing is the people I miss the most are probably the ones where the friendship ended the most dramatically.

I've been lucky enough that I've never had a friendship end in a way that led to us hating each other.  If I came face-to-face with anyone I used to be friends with, it may be awkward, but we would get along fine.  Even though I have several ex-best friends that I'm no longer best friends with because of a certain situation (that I'm not going to talk about) we did end as friends and I continued to speak to them at least occasionally  at school until we graduated.

I know that these friendships ended for a reason.  And I'm extremely blessed that two of my best friends in the world have been around for more than half my life.  Katrina and I have been friends since kindergarten, and Summer and I have been friends since first grade.  The two of them have been my friends as most (actually I think all) of these other friendships have ended.  Those two mean so much to me, and I think it says a lot about our friendships that I'm still friends with them and not other past friends.

Katrina moved away in middle school, and Summer moved away after sixth grade, came back in eighth grade, and then moved away again after sophomore year of high school.  Our main forms of communication are texting.  Katrina and I especially have gone through long periods (mostly during the first few years of high school) where we hardly spoke at all because of circumstances.  Even through all of that, we've stayed friends.  When I see the two of them it's as if we were never separated, and I trust them with everything.  I'm extremely lucky to have them both as friends and for as long as I have.

Even though I've managed to keep two of my childhood friends, I still miss a few of the others.  A couple of the friends I just grew apart from, and those are the ones I have an easy time getting over.  It's the couple of friends where I made a conscious decision that I needed out of the friendship that I wish I could go back and be friends with them again.  It may sound odd. You'd think it would be the other way around.  But I sometimes wonder if there could have been a better way to work things out.  We were in middle school.  We were immature.  I think I really did need to get out of that situation at the time, but now that we're older, could the friendships work again if we tried? I think it's possible.  Of these two past friends, I became friends with one of them again in the last two years of high school, and although we're not close and haven't spoken since graduation, things were fine.  The other past friend and I have had maybe five conversations since middle school (and that's being generous) and all of them were awkward.  Does that mean I should give up or try to reconnect with her through Facebook?  Are we so different now that it wouldn't work?  Katrina, Summer, and I are entirely different people too now, but we make our friendships work.  I just don't know.  And I don't know if I should try or not.