How do you feel when one of the happiest parts of your teen years comes back full force?

Imagine that you had a very close friend, someone you confided everything to, for almost 10 years.  The years in question?  9th grade - early adulthood.  You shared music, aspirations, pictures from vacation.  No matter how bad your other friendships got, or how frustrated you were with your parents, you thought that she would always understand.  Somehow, you lost track of each other.  You both moved, got married, there was no such thing as Facebook, and letters sent to her old address came back unopened: "Return to Sender".  

You looked around every once in a while as you built your net presence over the next 10 years: she was one of the people you looked for when building your friends in MySpace.  A few years later, it was LinkedIn.  A few years later, Facebook.  No luck.  You conclude that she's probably married with a different name, and doesn't want anything to do with you.  

Then one day, you get a Facebook message.  It's the face you know, but a different name.  And all those happy feelings and memories come back.  Turns out she is happy to find you, is happily married, and is still living in Lille, very close to the French/German border.  

Such was my elation this morning.  My pen pal found me!  There are few things that last 10 years that don't have some kind of bitter taste to them.  We fight with our friends, our family.  Work doesn't go so well.  We start a new hobby and get injured.  We get stuck in a life rut.  We hurt someone's feelings.  Our 10 year pen pal-ship doesn't have any bad memories for me.  After 10 years out of contact, it's wonderful to revive those happy thoughts. 

One of my best friends from those formative years is back.  Maybe this technology thing is cool after all.