Reconnecting in the Time of COVID

Buzzfeed recently posted an article about how this pandemic is causing many people to try to repair broken relationships...or even confess to secret crushes.

The idea seems to be that, all things considered, a lot of people are looking at what destroyed their relationships as being small potatoes, and want to try to fix things before one of them dies. Not that they necessarily want that person back in their lives again, but that they wanted to get rid of any bad blood that may have existed between them. In many of the cases this has gone well. In others, the person who received the olive branch said, “Nice, but I really don’t need to deal with this person anymore. I don’t really care. There’s no bad blood, there’s just no blood.”

I can understand both sides of this. On the one hand, there are people out there who’ve hurt me who I’d love to contact and say that all is forgiven. In fact, there’s one person out there who I’d like to tell that not only is all forgiven, but I wouldn’t trade the two weeks we had together for anything...regardless of how it ended. There are people who I’ve inadvertently hurt, that I’d like to apologize to; but they’ve been out of my life for so many years...decades even...that to try to contact them for this might open up a wound that had been long since healed and forgotten about.

On the other hand, there are people I’m perfectly fine with not having in my life anymore. Or as I said before, not so much bad blood as no blood. Sometimes I’ve even forgotten that they existed until some little thing jogs my memory. Years have gone by with me having no reason to contact them, and I figure they have no reason to contact me. I figure we’re both fine with blessed nothingness.

But those “secret crushes.” Oh...they can be ever so tricky. Sometimes what you feel you need to say “before one of you gets hit by a bus” comes out the wrong way, is taken the wrong way, and makes things very awkward between the two of you for quite a while. I know this because I’ve been on the giving end of the awkwardness. But do you tell someone how much they’ve meant to you while they’re still around, and risk the awkwardness that may come from that, or do you hold it in, with that person never knowing that they were special to you...something they may have wanted to know...before one of you goes to your grave?

This reminds me of that one special friend from many years ago, who I loved dearly, but didn’t tell for many reasons, including not wanting to risk ruining the friendship by making things awkward if she didn’t feel the same way. To this day, even though I know we weren’t right for each other, I still regret not having told her how I felt.

Will I be writing her during these unusual times, to finally let her know how I felt all those years ago...before one of us gets hit by a bus? No, I don’t think so. But if she wrote me, I’d be thrilled. 

Just not to death, I hope.