Chris WiegmanWhen I left Carbondale in 2012 I also finally cut ties with aviation as a career. While that move was great for me in a lot of ways it also meant losing touch with some really good people.
My friend Mike was one of those people. We had similar backgrounds and experiences in college and were quite close for a lot of years. After I left, though, we kinda drifted away.
To be fair to each of us there were some good reasons for that. On top of career and distance (he was newly married in Illinois and I had moved to Texas) there were also a number of very toxic people from that point in our lives that we each, I now know, intentionally left behind. Toxic friends that, when I look back today, I’m still ashamed that I never saw the issues with when I was in college. Put it all together and I can see how I lost touch with the good people, even if that was never the intention.
Thankfully Mike reached back out to me last week. I don’t think I had talked with him in 10 years so it was really great hearing from him.
Sometimes you reconnect with an old friend after years and realize you’re both very different people but that wasn’t the case with Mike and I. Our titles might be different and we’re both a lot older but that’s about it.
Now we’re working on plans to catch up soon as he’s not too far away (Milwaukee) and I’m really grateful for that.
There are people, places and things from my past that I would just as soon forget. Then there are good people, like Mike, that I regret growing apart from. It’s a good thing when those people regret losing come back into our lives.