'Til we meet....

I have a few friends who knit and blog and we've decided to embark on a blog project that has nothing to do with knitting. We're going to take turns coming up with a topic every Thursday and we each have to blog about it by the end of that day and post links to each others' blogs so that people can see our different perspectives on the same topic.

Check out the backstory about how the project was conceived and how we all came together.

Here are the other blogs:
Froggie Knits Like Crazy
Charmingly Random
Desperate Madness

This week it was my turn to pick the topic: What is the longest relationship you've had with someone whom you've never met in person? (Talk about how you met, what your friendship has been like, etc.) Do you think you'll ever get to meet them?

The topic was inspired when I realized that the other three bloggers involved with this project have not met in person and they all live in the same state. (I'm the only one of the group who lives in a different state.)

I have a lot of long time Internet friends (with whom I've been in touch on and off over the years), but I think my longest relationship without having met in person is with Katydid. (I'm using the nickname by which I first came to know her.)

I met Katydid on #CentPerk, which was this online chat group back in the mid-90's that was started in order to connect fans of "Friends." I don't even know how she and I started becoming close or what drew us together within the group. We just started e-mailing and became each other's online sister. She lived (and still lives) in Canada, so it wasn't like we could easily meet. I had only been to Canada once and that was freshman year of high school. I don't know if she had traveled to America at all, but if she did, it wasn't to Illinois.

Over time, we broke away from the chat group and were e-mailing on a regular basis, as well as sending each other packages with mix tapes and other fun items. (My favorite package was the Degrassi movie!) I felt I could really bare my soul to her, as I knew her outside my family and usual circle of friends. I would send her long e-mails and she'd send long ones back to me. I'd even write her letters on stationery when I was away from a computer but had a lot to tell her.

Then we lost contact in 2003. I don't know how it happened, but it just did. I don't know why I gave up so easily either. After I got on Facebook in 2007, I'd try to see if she had joined and would occasionally do searches. I didn't come up with much other than a lot of girls with the same name but a different face....until a few months ago. I found someone with her name who looked like her and had similar interests to the Katydid I remembered from years ago. I took a chance and wrote to her to see if she'd want to get back in contact. I received a nice e-mail in return, saying that she was hoping to find me too. It was so nice to reconnect with her. We e-mail shorter messages and it's more sporadic, but it's nice to know that she's around and that we can pick up where we left off. I hope we'll get to meet in person someday but I don't know who will make the trip first. I guess time will tell.