Harrassed From the Past?

A few weeks ago when I was playing with Emerson's new alumni directory, I found the contact info of a good friend I lost touch with years ago. I had looked for him but was never able to find anything, no email address or MySpace profile. Not until the online directory launched.

The info was an address, and by that I mean the snail-mail variety. For a few weeks I thought about writing an old-fashioned letter. I kept putting down the idea and then picking it up again. The relevance of contacting him rose and fell like a tide. Sometimes it was a good idea, sometimes I thought it was better to let sleeping dogs lie.

When it seemed like a bad idea, it seemed so because I don't know how it would be interpreted. On the few occasions I've received blast-from-the-past greetings, they've made me uncomfortable. Why write to me? Why now? And what am I expected to do with this?

How do you feel about old friends popping up out of the blue? I guess it depends on how the friendship ended. If it ended in a fight you're probably less likely to want to hear from the person. But what if you just lost touch? What if it was somewhere in between?

Well, I wrote out and sent a letter to the address I found, which may not even be accurate (he may have moved since the database was last updated). I didn't feel any regret or panic when I dropped it in the mailbox, and I chalked that up to the doubt I feel that he'll ever receive it. I was really jittery the next day, though, and the day after, when, if he was going to get it, he had gotten it. Who knows what will happen. Maybe I'll get a letter back. I hope so. Or maybe someday in the future I'll open up an issue of Found and see mine there. That would be okay too.