A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Hello. I guess this is a general question. Maybe some others out there are also pained by this feeling. One time in my life, in the past (10 to 5 years ago), I lost touch with most of my good friends of high school and college due to inevitable changes of location and gradual shifts of perspective and personality. There are some I loved so much, but eventually I lost the desire and ability to communicate with them, and I don't even know if they loved me in return. I don't know for sure if there was something I could have done to prevent this, or if the increasing distance was just a natural progression. There are a few people that I still dream about and miss, but I do not really wish for them to come back. Perhaps one or two I truly miss, even if I know there's no way we could fit into one another's lives as they are now.I do still have a couple of people I've known from my earlier life, but that's just a tiny fraction.After this slow loss of closeness and contact with old friends, I SLOWLY made new ones. These people I felt more natural with (as I had changed and I guess knew myself better). I did not expect anything to last forever, but I also did not intend on completely losing touch with them. However, I moved within the last couple of years and haven't seen some of them for a while, or at least can not see them on a consistent basis. Yet again, I am finding that I am losing touch with these newer friends. I have this DREAD that somehow I will again lose complete touch with most of them, and yet again be disconnected from my past. I feel like I'm changing and am no longer what I used to be with them. I find again that I have not much to say, and when I do, I do not get much response. I find that this time it's less based on interpersonal conflicts, but more on simple changes of life. No matter the reason, I feel awful that this type of change is happening again. I thought I had overcome 'losing touch' with my old friends after I had lost the first batch. What can I do to deal with this feeling of dread and loneliness? I can make new friends, yeah, but I hate the disconnection to the past (even if I start to lose the words to say to old friends). I hate starting over completely. The people I met within the last decade have mostly been good people. I know that, but part of me wants to let them go because I am yet again changing. I suppose I somewhat always want to let go, but a part of me just wants to stay on a confluent path. The part that doesn't feel okay with letting go, is feeling somewhat awful and panicky. The feeling of having little to say to friends and former lovers, and the feeling that they too have little to say to me anymore...I dislike it so much in some ways. Is this loss just a constant reality? Am I messing up in a huge way by going through these phases? How do others deal with this feeling of alienation? I should also say here that I, a 30 year old female, come off as shy and that it takes me a while to build a close friendship.
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female
reader, Angzw  +, writes (18 January 2010):
Virtually everyone goes through this nostalgic phase; the key is not to constantly look at the past but rather the future. Dont burn any bridges, use tools like Facebook to keep in touch. There is a saying which goes: 'a man without a future will always return to his past'. Your constant looking back means your future is not in order; your career, your love life. Start making plans about your life. Write down where you will be 6 months, 1 year, 5 years from now. Write down your goals and work towards achieving them.
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