Connecting with your past.

The title of this post is a bit incomplete. What I should call it is: "Connecting with your past, even if you are terrified to do so." The reason for this is that I am not all that comfortable with certain parts of my past. It's not that I've ever really done anything that I wouldn't want my mother to know about... well, maybe a few things. But, there are certain times that I much prefer staying where they are.

So why write about this now? Tonight I was briefly put in contact with someone that I knew way back in high school. She was one of the nicest people you would ever hope to meet. But myself, we'll just say that I am still not sure I have grown into myself. While wifey and I struggle to find JAM all the help we can to deal with his ADHD I spent the first 28 or so years woefully unaware that there was any help available for people like me. The same things that JAM deals with, I dealt with and in some respects still do. I, then and now, have trouble with social situations. I don't know how to read or react to people in the same way that "normal" people are able to do. I am loud when I don't mean to be, or when it is obviously inappropriate to be, I act a bit over the top when I don't know I am, etc. etc... All of this really affected me growing up, as it does for JAM, because other kids just didn't know how to react to me, or if they did react it was appropriate for them to think I was a nutter or a moron. Often both I imagine. I was not treated very well in my mind but in everyone else's defense how they treated me was most likely absolutely appropriate considering the circumstances. That is one of the biggest reasons we have sought help for JAM... I cry thinking that he will go through the same things I went through. I know he already is, even with all the help we are trying to get for him.

So again, why do I write about this now? Because this wonderful person, who I just found out is doing amazing, awe inspiring things with her life, was looking for me to contact about a high school reunion. The thought of that scares me more than anyone should have to admit. It isn't that I don't want to see some people, it is that I don't want to be remembered for the person I used to be. I have worked so hard at becoming the person I am today that I want to literally throttle anyone who still thinks of me as the "old me." My close family included. They are the worst if truth be told. But they aren't the point of this post. The point being, before my hand falls off for the length of this post, that I want to be the new me, but how does that work when I haven't spoken to, seen or otherwise interacted with any of these people in a decade and a half?

Time will tell, but it still scares me far more than it should.

And yes, I did reach out and contact that old 'friend' even though it was one of the scariest things I have done in a while. If it was any other person I am not sure I would have done that, but for some reason the person I knew then, and added to that what I learned about her from her blog, she is a wonderful, caring and (I really hope) forgiving person, and it seemed appropriate to contact her. It might be the beginning of accepting my past and reconnecting with a world that I thought lost and burried forever.