Messages from old loves

It isn’t often that an old love returns to you (I don’t mean literally comes back to you, just getting in touch, catching up, whatever). Maybe it is more prevalent in this era of social networking and face timing but it still isn’t that often. I sometimes feel that even with a hundred modes of keeping in touch with people, we lose contact with people almost instantly after they leave our immediate vicinity. The saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’ has never rung truer.

In such an era, when an old love does contact you after long years, maybe even decades, what feeling does that conjure in you ? Is it disinterest ? Is it happy eagerness to catch up with them after a long time ? Is it an anticipation laced with a mild anxiety about the possible awkwardness of the situation ? Or is it a mix of all of the above ?

This has been happening to me with increasing frequency over the past few years. Old boyfriends, people I once considered dating, people with whom I had mutual unstated crushes etc have been climbing back up from the mental abyss I sent them to, to say hello. Often, these interactions are incredibly funny, some of these people I was a child with (now that I’m an old fart, I call past-mes and past-thems children of course) have their own children now. It is interesting to see how our lives have mutated and branched out, gives a unique perspective on the passage of time. Most of the time this ‘coming back to life’ of old flames is amusing, barring a couple of oddballs who make you a little uncomfortable, make you rack your brain for a single reason why you even considered going out with them (lol).

Then there is the one that unsettles you a bit, makes you wonder if there are any embers left in what you have long considered to be a cold hearth. It is that one that prompted this post today. We haven’t spoken since we broke up almost three years ago. Even then it was a very brief affair which we jokingly referred to as Stockholm syndrome at the time (brief and torrid, the kind that gives you butterflies in the stomach when you think back to it). I’m not looking to start up anything. We live in different continents now, and I have a particularly terrible track record in long distance relationships, not to mention it was the long distance factor that ended it in the first place. I just keep echoing in my mind, a general wonderment that he voiced, if  we had done things a little differently, would it have lasted? Of course, that is neither here nor there, it was a long time ago, que sera sera etc.


P. S : I know I haven't posted anything here in almost 4 years. If there is anyone left who reads this blog, you have my eternal gratitude ;)