Today I recounted a couple stories from my childhood to the commune.
I told them how in fifth grade, I was in advanced math, so during the class math time, I typed all the spelling tests for the year on the Macintosh in the room. The teacher had not a clue how to read it - I taught her over the course of the year how to copy-paste, all of which she wrote down in a small notepad of information. (She still had those pages 5 years later when I talked to her again.) The classroom had an oreo bin, which we used to get a cookie from if we were good. I was so good that I had unlimited rights to the oreo bin -- not that I ever bragged about it, or took advantage of it, it just was.
I told them how in second grade, there was a whole group of us who sharpened our pencils so much that we wrote small enough the teacher needed a magnifying glass. The writing was extremely neat -- just tiny. She didn't like that. We were told not to do that again, or she's simply give us 0s.
I talked to that friend again today. For the first time in several years, I talked to her -- and as she said, it seems like nothing has changed in so many ways.
I've reconnected with a fair number of my friends recently, and it's nice to have them back. I never really lost contact with Erin (other than the 6 months I hated her for dating Derek, but that was still during high school). However, there were a number of other people that I did lose contact with, and I'm reforming those friendships. It's so nice to be able to have some of the people I didn't talk to for so long around again.
Anyone who I really enjoyed the company of, anyone I actually enjoyed spending time with, I still talk to. And I think that's pretty cool.
Do other people keep up with their friends? Kristan and Sam still talk, and are the kind of people where the other knows they'll be there, over time. I still talk to Erin and Nissa and Danny, and a few others. Do you keep in touch with friends from 2nd grade? 6th grade? High school? How do you keep in touch? How did you find them?
A while ago (well, a few years really) I stalked some email addresses off some state schools in GA because I figured those were the best places to search for a lot of my middle school classmates, but we haven't really stayed in contact. After this many years, I feel that unless you were really close, it's hard to reconnect because everyone is busy with their current lives now.
I don't really know anyone anymore from the earlier grades because we moved around so much. I keep track of a couple people from high school but that's it.
There's a Yahoo!Group that some alumni of my school subscribe to, and I occasionally hear from someone that way. But not really.
I don't have contact with any of my friends from Woodridge, and the only person who I was friends with in sixth grade was Tara...I talk to her online sometimes still, but not often, but I haven't seen her since graduation, I don't think.
I've found a few people on Facebook from elementary school, but I haven't talked to them because they weren't any of my good friends...
I'm also still best friends with ym highschool best friend. We've had some downs, ie when I came here for college, for example, but for several years we've been solid again. I was worried, after the period of being less in touch, that we'd be so different -our backgrounds are very different. But it was odd. I finally got the courage to tell her I'm bi... she's bi too! I got the courage to really discuss politics (she grew up very Republican)... we're both very leftwing! etc. So we found each other as best friends all over again. She doesn't live here but we talk pretty much every week. We ground each other. Our lives are still very different - for one she's been married 6 years. But we found that as we grew and changed we still fit. I keep in touch with some other highschool folks to different degrees. And then there's the folks who we just lost touch, and that's that, and I guess I figure if it didn't still click, oh well.