A month ago I posted an entry looking for my old college pal Derek. Well, I found him, as well as Larry and Dina, two other friends from my college newspaper days, and we all got together Sunday night. Nineteen (!) years melted away in a heartbeat when I walked into the restaurant and saw them, and I was suddenly right back in 1984 and twenty-two years old again.

Derek and Larry were my two best friends in the world and my time with them overshadows any friendships I’ve had since. They were the major players in one of the most intense and fondly-remembered periods of my life and they helped form who I am today.

But things didn’t end well with us. This most fondly-remembered time is also one of my most painful and fractured memories. At the end, I felt betrayed and disrespected and cast aside. The newsroom that had essentially been our clubhouse and my home away from home … suddenly wasn’t home anymore. And the people I loved best had done it to me — and didn’t care. It took me a long time to come back from that. I think there’s a part of me that still hasn’t.

Seeing them, being with them, spending the evening with them was wonderful and weird. It was great to talk and laugh and hang out with them again, but it was also bittersweet because of my conflicting emotions. I was so glad to see them all again, but it woke long-forgotten memories and pain. There are wounds yet unhealed that will never be healed, and that tempered the joy at seeing them.

I’ve missed these guys more than I knew and I’m surprised at the strength of my emotions now that we’re back in touch again. I’m glad and I’m sad, all at the same time. Even now, as I write these words, I’m on the verge of tears and I don’t know why.