"Being unforgiving is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die."--from "On the Wings of a Dove" episode from the show Ghost Whisperer

It's ironic that I should hear this line on an old episode of this show. Yesterday I ran into an old friend that I have not seen in years, and I can't describe how I felt, though anger was not the first rushing emotion, even though I always imagined it would be if I had a chance encounter with this person. After our brief conversation, I sat in my car and anger crawled out from whichever corner it had hid in when I first met eyes with this person. It knocked me in the face, and then sadness came, like a suffocating blanket I couldn't escape. I realized that I missed my friend. I realized that all the bad feelings I'd harbored for years had not disappeared; if anything, they had poisoned me. I needed to talk to a mutual friend of ours, someone who knew us well when this old friend and I were close friends, and she equated the experience as hunting for something important in the back of a refrigerator.You have to pull everything else out until you find just what you need. And that's what it was like - pulling out one emotion after the other, one memory after the next, until I found the important item - the memory of who this person and I once were as buddies sharing secrets, as young dreamers looking onward well beyond our years, as friends who wouldn't break apart when laughter stopped holding us together. I regretted that this person had missed so many years of my life, and vice versa. Unforgiving. Aren't so many of us like this? It is poison, though. It gets inside you and it doesn't leave until you find a remedy. I think I'll contact this old friend. In all honesty, I'm glad I saw this person again. I'm glad all is well with this individual. Admitting that, I believe, is the first step toward something better than poison - a cure.