Returning to the Fold

 I posted a comment on Facebook about writing my memoirs and how depressing it was. I guess here, I will explain why it is depressing. 

When I was in the eighth grade, I had a chance to meet new people, to bring them into my life. Yet it seems that everyone I brought into my life, I either ended up ignoring, discarding, or even alienating. I wish there was some way I could blame this on other people, but the truth is, I did it to myself.

Now I wonder, am I alone in this deficiency? Or is this just the nature of being human? To take advantage of others, to ignore the people who are nice to us, and to fail to notice those around us who might actually make a positive impact on our lives.

I am not a huge fan of Facebook (and even less a fan of Twitter). Yet Facebook had brought back into my life some people that I didn't pay much attention to. And the amazing thing is, once I started seeing them, truly for the first time, I realize that they are really wonderful people. People I should have been paying attention to for forty or fifty years.

The problem with writing your life story, particularly as you go through it year by year, is that you begin to see all those people you failed to see the first time around. But now, it's too late.

To all of those who I ignored, I apologize for my arrogance. I realize that having me in your lives might not have made much of a difference. But I do know that not having you in my life did leave it emptier that it should have been.



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