Venting my old childhood friend

[vampire2002]

i really miss one of my old childhood friends. for years i have thought about reaching out to her, but always chicken out. i often wonder how she's doing, since she also always had mental health struggles when we were young.
we stopped communicating on sort of bad terms, because i misspoke and what i meant to say came out differently and it upset her and i was always too anxious and cowardly to apologize and clarify (this was many years ago when i was a teenager.) we didn't have a fight or anything, it just suddenly ended with an awkward communication when we used to be best friends.
since i might ctb in a few months, i wonder if i should try to talk to her again so i don't have any regrets about this. but then maybe that would just be causing another person pain if i do go through with my plans.
maybe she hates me and doesn't want to hear from me anyway. some people say i should try and she'd probably be happy to hear from me, others say to let sleeping dogs lie. perhaps her not reaching out to me means she's not interested in talking to me, or maybe she's anxious the same way i am.
i feel quite conflicted and unsure what to do. maybe i'm being selfish by trying to insert myself into her life again, maybe i'm just missing the past, but truthfully, i just want to hear from her. it's embarrassing, but i even still have dreams about her.
i've never been very good at communicating. i regret so deeply not clearing things up when i was younger. maybe then we'd still be friends.

 

[zekeyaeger]

I feel you, I am facing something similar. Personally, I would just not do anything, but then again it's because I am done with people in general.

 

[Edu Ardanuy]

i really miss one of my old childhood friends. for years i have thought about reaching out to her, but always chicken out. i often wonder how she's doing, since she also always had mental health struggles when we were young.
we stopped communicating on sort of bad terms, because i misspoke and what i meant to say came out differently and it upset her and i was always too anxious and cowardly to apologize and clarify (this was many years ago when i was a teenager.) we didn't have a fight or anything, it just suddenly ended with an awkward communication when we used to be best friends.
since i might ctb in a few months, i wonder if i should try to talk to her again so i don't have any regrets about this. but then maybe that would just be causing another person pain if i do go through with my plans.
maybe she hates me and doesn't want to hear from me anyway. some people say i should try and she'd probably be happy to hear from me, others say to let sleeping dogs lie. perhaps her not reaching out to me means she's not interested in talking to me, or maybe she's anxious the same way i am.
i feel quite conflicted and unsure what to do. maybe i'm being selfish by trying to insert myself into her life again, maybe i'm just missing the past, but truthfully, i just want to hear from her. it's embarrassing, but i even still have dreams about her.
i've never been very good at communicating. i regret so deeply not clearing things up when i was younger. maybe then we'd still be friends.

I did this last year. I reached out to all my childhood friends, at least the ones I still care about to this day. I found almost all of them on social media (Instagram, Facebook, etc.) and had the pleasure of chatting, texting, and even calling each of them.

It was amazing, but it also made me realize that these are different times. Some of them are married, with kids, and so on. Even though we all remembered the good old times together, they've become different people. Yes, life has hurt them as much as it has hurt me. That's when I understood that this is the grown-up world. We sit, talk, laugh, reminisce, and laugh some more. Then we get called back to the grown-up world, the one that makes us feel older, sometimes with regrets, and with a soul that may never fully heal from the adversities life throws our way.