With Age Comes Wisdom...

There’s something strange about getting older. You realize how many people quietly drifted out of your life - not because of a fight, or because anyone meant to leave, but simply because life kept moving and nobody knew how to stop it long enough to hold on.

A few days ago, an old friend reached out after reading my blog. I haven’t seen him since shortly after college, and honestly, hearing from him felt unexpectedly comforting.

College was such an awkward season of life for me. While I made some really wonderful friends, I was also figuring out who I was, making mistakes, overthinking everything, and learning a lot of lessons the hard way. When graduation came, I didn’t do a great job staying connected to people. Social media was barely becoming a thing back then, and reconnecting with people wasn’t as easy as opening an app and sending a message.

But if I’m being honest, technology wasn’t really the reason I lost touch.

Fear was.

I’ve always struggled with feeling like I fully fit in anywhere. I can replay one embarrassing moment from twenty years ago and convince myself everyone else remembers it too. I assume people remember the awkward thing I said instead of the hundreds of normal conversations we had in between. So instead of reaching out, I stay quiet. It feels safer that way. (Side note, but sharing because seeing this moment she captured almost makes me cry - Check out this painting my cousin Danielle surprised me with! This level of peacefulness I see on me in this painting is what I hope to achieve 24/7/365! Check out her art!)

The funny thing is, every time I reconnect with someone from my past, I learn the same lesson: the things I carried around for years were never the things they remembered at all.

They remember the road trips.
The inside jokes.
The late-night conversations.
The fun.
The friendship.
The late night runs to Sub Dock.

Meanwhile, I’m over here apologizing in my head for some random thing I said in 2001.

I think a lot of us do this. We become historians of our own worst moments while everyone else remembers the best parts of us.

And maybe that’s the lesson.

Maybe we waste too much time assuming people remember us at our worst, when most of the people who cared about us were simply happy we existed in their lives at all.

Next week, he and I are going to lunch, and another old friend might join us too if she can move around some work meetings. And instead of worrying about whether enough time has passed or whether we’ll still have things in common, I’m trying to just appreciate it for what it is: proof that good connections don’t always disappear just because life got busy.

Sometimes they’re just waiting for someone brave enough to reach out first.

And honestly, there’s something really beautiful about reconnecting with people when you’re finally content with the life you’ve built. I love my family. I love the quiet little life my husband and I have created over the years. For a long time, I think I viewed old friendships almost like opening a door back into an old version of myself that I wasn’t sure I wanted to revisit.

But now, it feels different.

Now it feels less like looking backward and more like adding something meaningful to an already full life. Like realizing there’s room for both - for the family and future you’ve built, and for the people who once mattered deeply to you too.

Maybe growing up isn’t about becoming an entirely different person. Maybe it’s about learning how to carry all the good pieces of your life together without feeling like they compete with one another.

I want to get better at remembering the good stuff. Not the awkward moments or the things I wish I’d said differently, but the people who mattered and the memories that deserved more space in my mind than my insecurities ever did.

I’m working on it.

But thankfully, I’ve had some really great people helping me along the way.