PT; You and I go back a while, all the way back through TFN. And I've enjoyed your postings as much through that time. But I have to tell you, though you are a valued friend, I don't realy know how to contact you, or even know you well enough to really miss you.
Everyone on this site is important to me, but I don't actively search when someone is gone. Unless a person specifically tells me they are going, well life is way too busy to keep up with everyone.
I'd like to have a more personal freindship with everyone here, but it is cyberspace. I don't even know your real name, what you look like, or much of anything about you, except the postings we have shared.
I'm sure its the same for nearly everyone here. And I know there are some who are more emotional and worry more than do I. I'm just not that kind of person. And it's not that I don't care, it just isn't in my personality to fret about things. Maybe it's because I was in the Navy, and most of my freinds moved away on a regular basis, usually never to be heard from or seen again. You build up a protective mechanism of sorts, at least I do. It keeps it from hurting so much.
And yes it's true. While perusing through old posts, I occasionally came accross some of your posts, and wondered where you were. And I'll always remember when I asked if Tuboe came back, as you use his line after your posts. You told me that you used it to remember him.
You are a friend, but a freind in cyberspace, a place where only minds and ideas meet. Your mind and your ideas have taught me things, have helped me grow. In that way, we are freinds. I wish it could be more. Distance and resources make that impossible.
Don't feel sad because a great fuss wasn't made about your absence. This cyber-community is glad to have you back. At the very least, I am glad to have you back. But when you decide to leave, for whatever reason, that is your choice. And the site will go on.
I hope that when my life is too busy for me to check in here frequently, no one worries about me. I am just a visitor who enjoys the fellowship of like minded people. I try to help where I can, learn knew things, and convey freindship. But this is cyberspace. It is almost a spiritual thing. And it is kept in perspective relative to my life. Eveyone has to do that, keep things in perspective relative to their lives.
Think of me, and the others here as a resource, not your family, or close set of freinds. Should you desire greater freindship from me, I will be glad to open dialogue through something less public, such as private messages, or email. Then when an investment of trust is made, and an investment of self, and even emotion is conveyed, that is when a fellow poster becomes something more than a casual aquaintance over the internet.
Don't get me wrong. I value the freindship of every poster on this site, and offer my own in return. This is a great place to visit.
But there is so much to do that I'll never get done. So much to learn, and so much to give. I have a son getting married in a couple months. I have two daughters in university, and another son who needs to know that his dad is there for him, though he is a young adult living on his own. And my wife, she is and has to be the focus of my life. I made her a promise when I married her that nothing would get between her and me.
There is only so much of all of us to go around. And that includes you, PT.
Don't feel hurt, feel welcomed back.
Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North