A number of years ago a friend and I had a falling out after I outstayed my welcome at his place. At the time he said he would never forgive me. He moved away and then I did the same. We haven't spoken or written in probably 5 years. So I decided to write to him.

Here is what I wrote:

Dear Dxxxxx,

I stumbled across an old email from Txxxx the other
day while looking for his address that was about you
and so I thought I would drop you a line. I imagine that
you are still mad at me as that is your way, though I hope
that you have found forgiveness for my follies.

It is amazing what google can turn up. It helps of course
that you have a very unusual name. While google has lots
of information on me it is harder to find since my name is
so much more common. Signal to noise and all that.

While looking for your email address again I stumbled
across lots of interesting bits of information about you.
I see that you have been living in North Carolina (complete
address thanks to the RNC) and recently sold your house
there for quite a nice chunk of change. I hope you made out
like a bandit on the sale. I hope Intel is treating you nicely.
Are you happy that Mac is now on Intel? I am back on Mac
(on PPC) and am otherwise running Linux. I see that you
got to work on ipv6 stuff awhile back and donated $200
to the republican party. Still supporting the GOP! Some
things will never change, I am sure. I also see that you
got to judge some engineering things at the UofA and
Dayton which must have been fun.

I imagine that you will completely ignore this email,
if you even read it this far. I wanted you to know that I
am sorry that things went down the way they did. I never
meant to out stay my welcome at your place and the
trouble really stemmed from bad communication on
both of our parts. I hope that some day you can
forgive me for my humanity as I have forgiven you
for yours a long time ago. I still think about you
sometimes and wish that we could bury the hatchet.
I know how you are though. I miss arguing politics
with you and would love to hear how you are doing
and share war stories but I imagine that you would
rather hold a grudge than forgive an old friend.
It's really too bad as we had a lot of good times.
I'd tell you about what I am up to but I imagine you
really don't care. If that isn't the case drop me a line.
If that is the case then I forgive you.

Take care old friend and I wish you the best the
world has to offer. I hope you are doing well.

Namaste,
~ Xxxx

I was surprised that he actually wrote back:

Hey man. All is forgiven. I'm the one that is sorry.

Lots to catch you up on. I sold my house in North Carolina
for a lot of reasons, but did make out good.

My new number:
xxx-xxx-xxxx.

I am truly sorry. That was a bad time in my life, and no -
I'm not a repubilcan any more. Hell, I live in NYC now. :-)

Let's catch up. And I AM sorry. I miss my friend. I miss Nick.

All the best, with warmth and admiration.
D

We haven't managed to talk yet but I am sure that we will.