Flirting with Regrets

I just dropped a good friend an email. I had not connected with him in several months. We have been friends since our Freshman year in college 35 or so years ago. He is probably the only friend I have attempted to keep in touch with. All the other "Friends for Life" I was sure I had made have slowly moved out of my life. It is not that we conciously cut the connection, we just let it lapse into dormancy. It then withered and died.

But Tom was different. He always made the effort to stay connected. He was not obnoxious, just insistent. It helped that we had similar "kiss my ass" attitude about Life and how we went about it. We have been willing to let each other follow our own paths without judgement, just encouragement.

Tom chose the life of a Federal employee. Living in the DC area, he has raised a family, owned a home, and has generally been a all around good guy and citizen . I struggled some at first. I had to find the bottom before I could look up. Once I figured out that Life was not found at the bottom of a liquor bottle or in the rush of a coke packed nose, I got on with the rest of my life. These last 25 years in Maine have been productive I guess. I too, have raised a family, owned a home and I would like to think I am now generally an all around good guy and citizen.

So I dropped him an email. Asked him how things were going. Filled him in on the latest at my end. And then I asked if he still had dreams. Did he still look at the future as one of possibilities or one that was cast in stone? At what point in our lives do we stop dreaming and just give in to the inevitabilites that seem to hold us in their grip? He has yet to reply. And that is okay. I wasn't really asking him anyway.