Long Distance Friendships

It's amazing how you can be 500 miles away from people and still feel close to them. Some of the people I'm happy to call my friends have both distance and years between us, and yet, the past doesn't matter anymore. The friendship is what matters these days, as it should have long ago. Mistakes that seemed to ruin relationships back then now seem trivial and asinine. Thank God we don't keep the high school drama mentality for our entire lives. Society would be even more trivial and materialistic than it already is.
Reuniting via the internet, many old friends have become new ones, with lives as exotic and amazing as mine often isn't. One of my new old friends is a missionary working in China; another works in D.C. and travels the world. One is going through a divorce, another just graduated from college. My brother-in-law, also a friend from high school days, is having to change route sales jobs as often as underwear. None of us, I'm sure, dreamed our lives would be the way they are now.
But through our disparate, distanced existences, we somehow reconnected; the wonders of myspace, i suppose, and the internet's ability to do something other than browse porn.
I'm grateful for my friendships I've developed, and redeveloped online. I needed someone to tke me 500 miles and ten years back to when life was less (and more) complicated. I think we all need that.