Hmmm

[sal_amanda]

so there's this particular person i've been not in touch with for the past five years. we were in a relationship for a very substantial amount of time during rather formative years (and most of you regular readers will know who i mean). we did an awful lot of hurt to each other, but we've formed each other into who we are now.

he cut off ties with me over superficial reasons when really i think it was just an excuse to take a break for a bit. i let it slide for a while, but eventually just got angry. had the chance to speak with him nearly a year later when i saw him in burlington at john's graduation, but i was sorta numb seeing him and was dragged away. still wish i had talked to him sometimes because i got the sense he wanted me to.

by then i was being stubborn and then i was getting married and i just didn't know how to tell him. i didn't think i could just call after two years only to say i was getting married.

a found out that year that a friend of mine had died in a car accident a few months earlier and it really shook me up more that i didn't know about it than that it actually had happened. i reached out to a handful of people i had lost along the way as a result, but was still too chicken to contact this guy.

almost two years ago, there was a tidbit in the alumni newsletter that he had finished his PhD and was doing his postdoc in the Netherlands, not a surprise because he was dating a girl from there and i predicted that very thing would occur. so i got up the nerve to want to contact him, only couldn't figure out where to send anything. i decided to send a card to his parents' house, but i honestly don't know that his mom would have given it to him when she saw it was from me. she holds a grudge.

i occasionally look for him on things like classmates.com and continue to scan the alumni newsletter. today i went on the alumni website to update my new job. while i was on, i figured i'd look him up. and there's an updated e-mail and address. so now i have the means to contact him directly.

i've hated this silence between us. even when things were at rock bottom with the relationship, we were always best, best, best friends. and i believe that he'd admit that me breaking things off was actually best for both of us in the long run because there was just too much damage there to continue. there was one year of bliss, four more of ups and downs, and one year of post-breakup entanglement. i get that we needed the space now, but i still hate the silence.

so i've got five years' worth of thoughts, but have no idea what to say.

Comments

[jessakeenie.livejournal.com]

Tough one.
To be honest, I wouldn't go for a full reunion right away. I mean, five years is a long time and the phone works both ways. Perhaps a small "long time no talk, how are you?" kinda email would be substantial. See how he responds. Start small. If getting connected again is someting that it seems like you both want to do/could do, then work from there.
The most important thing when dealing with connecting with exes, I've found, is to make sure you are not damaging anything that's happening with your current relationship. What I mean is, go out of your way to make John not feel uncomfortable. From what I read, John seems like a pretty great and trusting guy but "My fiance wants to get reconnected with her ex" can be difficult for even the most trusting person to deal with.

[busybusymama.livejournal.com]

I agree. Are you looking for closure and the ability to move on, or are you looking to start up a friendship again? I think that you need to be clear in your mind what you want BEFORE you try to contact him.

[sal_amanda]

really, i'd like to try to get my friend back. i miss that part. but if i can't have that, i'd like that closure on the friendship. i'm closed just fine with the relationship aspect of it.

john has always known how much it's bugged me. he was there when the silence began. i told him i have the e-mail. he knows i'll write him. he grumbled, but he knows i'm like this. the joy of being upfront with one's personality right off the bat is that he decided to keep me even knowing i'm like that.

[i-am-solid.livejournal.com]

Well that's easy if you want closure - one conversation ought to do it. You tell him you saw his new contact information on the alumni site and thought you'd say hello. Nothing weird or stalker about that. But if you don't want anything more than closure, get out everything you want to say sooner rather than later so it's done. If you want to be friends, hopefully John's cool with that. But even if he's not it's your decision on whether to stay in contact (if that even becomes a possibility after contact #1). I know exactly how to contact Chris when I want to talk to him and Andy hates that, but I don't discuss it with him because there's no reason to. It would anger him over nothing and anger me for being told what to do or not do. But then, I'm not much of a team player.

[sal_amanda]

sometimes we're so alike, it's creepy.