a blast from the past 2 (i'm sure there's another post with that title somewhere)

i got a linkedin request from my ex the other day. at first, i thought there was a mistake when i saw the name but then i saw the picture and it was, indeed, him. 

on the one hand, i was happy that he'd finally reached out again - after several years of irregular but positive emailing, he'd stopped all contact about 4-5 years ago with a laconic and cryptic 'goodbye' and had closed his account. i'd tried to locate him prior to going to Australia but without success and had, several times, imagined the worst. so it was a relief to find out he was alive and presumably well.

on the other hand, it made me uneasy. why the change of heart? maybe it's just a practical thing: changing jobs, need for a network - but we do live at opposite ends of the planet so i'm not sure how that will help. my biggest problem is probably that i've made some important changes to my life in the last year and i think i suddenly felt like the past was trying to take me back. that is silly of course, because even if he did request to join my network, he didn't actually send a message and even if he did that, i guess we'd just resume our very irregular epistolary friendship and i don't really think there's any harm in that.