time travel

today i journey back and forward into time. i go to see friends i have not seen, some in nearly ten years. people who know me, who have read me since i was eight years old. some who were there with me through my darkest days of high school when friends were few. true friends. those who cared more for your soul than their use of you. those who wept with me over ice cream at our shared impotence to change the way things seemed to be. those who listened and understood. those who through the years have strengthened me with their love.

it is not that i fear welcome, or that there will be none. i fear that the long years of our separation may have been enough for the masks to take on some permanence between us. i wonder if these dear friends will let the facades of life, the striving for the right words, the smiling pride of success dominate our time together. or if, they will let me back in to their hearts.

will we sit, worlds apart across the tables. speaking in veiled terms about the periphery of our lives? or will we dive in deep and share the anguish, the joy, the muckiness of life that soils our feet.

after the chit chat will the dialogue resume? after the smiling and polite introduction to the children who have come along in the long years which have separated us, will there be a knitting of hearts? am i unreasonable to desire this? am i demanding more of a long time friend than i require of those that inhabit my daily sphere? i think not.

but i have learned to let things die when the other party wishes it to be so. i have long ceased chasing down people, tackling them, and dragging them back into my life.

i do not enjoy watching friends walk away for the last time. but i also do not care for first time encounters, they are awkward in their own way. unfamiliarity is a necessary evil.

so as i journey back to pick up where we last met and spoke and looked into each other's eyes, i wonder if we'll journey forward. or if we'll abandon the pursuit. either way is fine, i prefer to go forward. but know present disinterest does not glut the past of its value. and that gives me hope.