do you ever wonder what happens to the words that we send

We're finally cancelling our AOL account, so this morning I sent out a 'change of address' email to some of the people in my address book - the ones I was pretty sure didn't already know. I came home tonight to a reply email from someone I'd met while I was in the UK - someone I thought had forgotten all about me. (Our last communcation was 'ages ago' as you measure time in the electronic world, just after I got back, and not much at that.) I'd considered him one in a string of missed opportunities from that time - one of the ones I was saddest to have missed, and I when I'd think of him, it was always with regret. Regret that it was never the right time or the right place; regret that he went his way and I went mine; regret that I let him just slide out of my life like that, with hardly a ripple.

But it turns out that he didn't forget about me. And I think that it made him happy to hear from me. And it made me happy to hear from him. For the record, it wasn't some grand declaration of love that he sent, and, you know, I didn't need it to be. Just knowing that I meant something to him, even one tiny part of what he meant to me, and for however brief a period, is enough. I guess it just reminded me of how much we all touch each other's lives on a daily basis. And that sometimes the briefest of interactions can leave a tremendously lasting impression.

'Always glad to hear from you.'