Peregrine Lake – A Weekly Webcomic Written by Trae Dorn and Drawn by Ethan Flanagan

As the year comes to an end yet again, I’ve ended up reflecting a lot not just on the last twelve months, but my past in general. Who I am, where I’ve been, and who I’ve brought with me.

When we were down in Milwaukee for Christmas, Crysta and I got dinner with Chris and his partner Sarah. I haven’t seen Chris in years, and it was the first time meeting someone that important in his life. It was nice — and frankly it’s been too long since we got together. Chris is arguably my oldest friend, he was the best man at my wedding, and even though it had been ages since we got together, talking to him always feels like no time has passed. We’re both awful at keeping in touch, so it’s nice to be reminded that the connection we have is still there and easily rekindled.

And we’re both going to try to be better about, like, actually talking to each other.

Coincidentally, I separately ended up in a conversation with another good friend about a person we used to both be close to the other night. I could have sworn that I wrote a blog post about this at some point, but for the life of me I can’t find it. Maybe it was on a social media platform, but it doesn’t matter really. The friend I was talking to the other day was talking about how she wanted to reconnect with this person who is now far removed from both of our lives.

She in part removed him by choice, but me not so much.

This person had been a close creative collaborator with me, and how he chose to make his exit from my life has always been something of a sore spot. My friend wanted to reconnect with him because she missed him though, but apparently he doesn’t want to talk to her.

For like the dumbest, most childish fucking reason I’ve ever heard.

So finally, after learning some more details about what happened between those two, with over fifteen years in the rear view, I’m finally at peace with what happened. Frankly I think I might significantly better off to not have had this person in my life, and maybe I should count my blessings that things ended when they did. Who knows what passive aggressive landmines I narrowly avoided.

There’s also a lesson here I think. If someone is important to you, and they reach out, you’ll answer. Distance and time don’t matter when people decide they want to reconnect, and when both people value a relationship it’s as easy as sitting down together again and sharing a meal.

We have limited time on this planet. My grandmother died earlier this year, and my cousin just a few weeks ago. There is a finite amount of moments we’ll spend with the people we care about, and we should value each one we get to share. If someone doesn’t value making a connection with you, then maybe they weren’t worthy of your time to begin with. I don’t know. It made sense to me at the time.

Oh, and you can go fuck yourself, Matt.

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