You Can't Go Home Again

All of my life I've heard the phrase, "you can't go home again." I never really understood what that meant until my 20th high school reunion. I was hoping to reconnect with friends I had not seen in two decades. Of all the people I was hoping to see, only two showed up. We traded email addresses, phone numbers and such, but nothing came of it.

Then a couple of years after that, I started looking for another old friend. I found him, emailed him, traded phone numbers, arranged a time we could talk on the phone; he never called.

A number of years before the reunion, I looked up an old friend, got his phone number, talked to him once or twice. We traded a couple of emails, then he quit writing. I chalked it up to occupational hazards (he's a pediatrician) and not enough time on his hands. So at Christmas time I wrote him a Christmas greeting and emailed it to him. Nothing. Possibly his email address changed, I don't know. I don't even care anymore.

Recently I've heard from another friend. She actually found me; we traded emails back and forth for a couple of weeks, then silence.

Now I understand the phrase, "You can't go home again."

Nothing will ever be the same. Times change, people change, including yourself. No matter how much you want things to be like they used to be, they can't. And for me, the nostalgic, sentimental person I am, that's very sad.

This is why I will most likely never attend another high school reunion, ever.