In the past few months I’ve made a conscious decision to reconnect with many friends from high school. And it’s been worth it.

After living outside my home state for two years now, I guess it gave me new perspective on the whole thing. Recently I’ve reconnected with past girlfriends, past teammates, and past best friends who all got swept away from me because of my decisions.

Many of these people are ones I didn’t exactly end on a solid note with. There’s a lot of good and bad thrown into the melting pot that was our relationship for sure. There were fights, but there were also great times that can’t seem to get out of my head. It’s funny how we only remember the good times.

But let’s get to the heart of the issue here. Why should you reconnect? Why reach out again? I can tell you that doing this has been so rewarding for me in so so many ways.

For one, you’ll see just how easy it is to pick back up where you left off. The same jokes still hit, and the same topics come back up in conversation. It’s almost like you went back in a time machine. It feels like a dream.

Second, you get to see how you both have changed–and you did change. You get to take your new eyes and look at your old friends with wonder. There’s something different about them, yet something still the same.

Third, you get to come full-circle. You get to arrive back where you started in a few ways. But it’s also like re-learning a language you haven’t practiced for a few years. It’s familiar, but it’s been so long that you have to go back to the beginning.

Fourth, you get to be a positive person in their life again. This is probably my favorite aspect of it all. It’s easy for me to look back and think about how much of an idiot I was to some people. It’s definitely a pain point for me. There’s some things I wish I could re-do, but after reconnecting it’s almost like you get a chance to re-do it. You get a chance to say sorry, act how you wish you would’ve acted, and almost re-live moments in time. It’s been really fun for me to be able to do that.

And I know it might be fun for some other people as well. Last year I mentioned to a friend of mine that I wanted to see somebody I used to be very close with. I also mentioned that I never thought they’d want to see me, though. A few days later I got a text from them saying they would like to see me, and I almost fell over in my chair. Which brings me to my next point:

Fifth, and lastly, it’s amazing how forgiving people can be. It’s remarkable how much people can believe in the goodness in you instead of the bad–despite us showing a lot of bad to them in the past.

If you have a desire to see anybody again, tell them. You’ll be surprised at how forgiving they can be, how surreal it will feel, and how you’ll both be able to move on and make new memories together.