One Chance Encounter

Me and Cin got up this morning and drove up to Cracker Barrel in an attempt to get breakfast. No luck - the wait was over a hour, probably since it's New Year's Day. So we headed back to Columbia and went to Boston Market for lunch. While Cin was paying and I was filling up our drinks, I hear someone come up to me and say "Jeff, it's been a really long time."

Turns out it was Jan, a girl I knew for years and went out with for a while, many years ago. We've lost touch. So in the course of ten minutes, we kinda caught up. I found out she's working for the Department of State right now, which is really cool. It was really good to see her.

What bothers me is how I handle situations like this.

Even once in a good while, I'll see someone I haven't seen in a long time, someone that I'd love to catch up with and learn more about. Jan was very special to me, and I'll always consider her a good friend. Yet I don't know much about how she's spent the past couple of years. And yet I spent this chance meeting learning a little more, but that's it. No attempt to see her again and catch up. No way of contacting her in the future. It'll be the next chance meeting that I'll see her again at, if that ever happens. This is usually what happens when I run into someone I haven't seen in a while. While I'm really glad I ran into her, part of me feels like I messed up a good chance to reconnect with an old friend.

Oh well. One of these days, I'll get better at this kind of thing.