Let Bygones... Be Gone?

Re-engaging with one's past is altogther one of life's more interesting propositions.

Nobody is able to go through life and maintain contact with everyone that you encounter and have a friendship with. No matter how hard you try there is no way that you are going to remember every single kid who used to build camps with you at school when you were 12 or who your best friend was when you used to go to tennis coaching aged 8 and although you may remember some of the guys who you shared your first few shots with when you obviously didn't look old enough to get in but some girl you knew had promised some barman that they may one day give them head, then are we bad people for not staying in touch with everyone?

This isn't the question that infuriates me as instead there is a far worse scenario than this one. As old acquaintances slip away into memory without consequence or repurscussion and from time to time we ask the age old "I wonder what they are doing?" hypothetical, this isn't the worrying one.

As I walked out of a tube station the other day, I suddenly heard this clamour of "Alex!" (It was certainly a clamour, as I had Jimi blasting his heavenly guitar riffs between my ear drums), there it was in human form: the past. Not even the distant past but still far away enough to be what seemed like a lifetime ago. Suddenly like a rabbit stuck in the proverbial headlights, I didn't know where to look, where to go, what to say. My expression was hid in that slightly embarassing half surprise and half cringe. I agreed to everything that was posed to me: Drink? Yes. Dinner? Yes. Have you seen X, Y or Z recently? No, but I would love to!! (I'm fake, a hypocrite - a lot like Gordon Brown denying his Scottish roots in the Libya fiasco)

What do you do when slapped in the face with the past? Is it okay to go back to something that you let go years ago? Kevin Keegan went back to Newcastle for a second spell and that ended in tears. Is everything in life meant to be a one-hit wonder?

There is a reason that ex-girlfriends and ex-boyfriends are filed away into history and never spoken to again by many. There is nothing left to talk about, you have exhausted that relationship and except for maybe a quick catchup there is perhaps nothing you have left in common. I find that I have become a completely different person to who I was three years ago, I have seen more, done more. My priorities are now different and I'm sure the people I once called my best friends have separate ideas. Threfore, is it justified to accept the past and venture back into that arena and rekindle some type of relationship?

Every time that I go back down to Canterbury where I grew up and bump into people who I used to hang out with, I never know what to say. You may have been best friends with someone when you were seven but how on earth am I meant to share that same affinity that we once had? Unfortunately I don't think you are.

The old saying that we should live in the moment is very poignant. There is a reason that that your friends now have been your friends for as long as they have. Anyone who you bump into along the way, there is always a good reason that you lost touch.

Remember this. Indeed, it's the same as why certain clothes are still in sale and have been marked down over and over again. If no-one wanted it the first time around...