My people

After decades of regretting my shabby treatment of friendships from earlier stages of life, I came to reckon in recent years with the sadness of a lifetime of social disconnection.

All through my life, I had come to know fascinating people; now, as I approached old age -- 50yo at least feels like old age -- I found that many of these people were now effectively inaccessible. At the very least, I had shed the intimacy of friendship with all of these people; any hope of reconnecting could not be built on a foundation of intimacy, but could only rebuilt through research. Some were nominally on Facebook, but rarely if ever logged in to read messages. Others were not easy to find on Facebook, or elsewhere, because their name was all too common. (Good luck finding a particular Thai Nguyen!)

All too often, these people were almost impossible to find, and when found, offered no mechanism for connecting.

The more I considered it, the more tragic it seemed.

Starting roughly four years ago, I started haphazardly but doggedly working to rebuild this network of fascinating and beloved people. My targets have been a mishmash of formerly close friends, meaningful acquaintances, interesting colleagues, and people just outside of my social network.

I have reconnected with more than 200 previously disconnected people from my past. It has been the most fascinating and satisfying thing I've ever done. I still have a lot of work to do.

I've learned a great deal, which I will touch on below. I have learned a lot more than I will discuss here, and I expect to spend the rest of my life exploring this topic.

How it works

My guiding principle has been: if I am curious about a person, I try to connect. There are hundreds of people I love and/or admire from my past, and I can't approach all of them at once. I also continuously find myself interacting with people who were not close friends, but who overlapped with my life in meaningful ways.

I don't have a plan; I just go with any connective impulse that occurs to me. Sometimes the impulse comes from a dream; other times it comes from a random comment on Facebook. Occasionally I get a random ache to talk to a friend who has seemingly disappeared. If it comes on to my radar, I try to connect.

Honestly, the most shocking part of all of this is that everyone loves the idea of reconnecting. I've experienced nothing but enthusiasm. It probably helps that I genuinely don't have an agenda. I've not recorded any of our conversations, nor have I even taken notes on any of these conversations. In my mind, our conversations are not resources to be mined, but human experiences to be collaboratively explored.

Not particularly related to this. I really kinda love that you’re…I hope you take this the right way. Kinda a jerk. Or not at all a people pleaser. It makes me smile.

A history of my connections

In June of 1988, I graduated from a high school in the northern suburbs of San Diego. What I didn't realize at the time was that my peers and I had been gifted an unusually delightful social environment. What I assumed was a normal childhood was in fact an ideal confluence of wealth disparity, population density, and social cohesion.

Over the course of years, from 1977 to 1988, I had developed dozens and dozens of relationships with various levels of intimacy.

Alex
Alison
Art
Barb
Blaine
Bobby
Bonnie
Brad
Brian
Cameron
Chad
Court
Dan C.
Dan F.
Dave
Denise
Derric
Diana
Donna
Doug
Elaine
Elizabeth
George
Janine
Jen
Jo
John B.
John P.
Jon K.
Jon W.
Kathleen
Ken
Kevin W.
Kevin S.
Konoshin
Kristin
Lauren
Mark G.
Mark K.
Matt E.
Matt H.
Mike B.
Mike S.
Neil
Nettie
Nick
Pam
Pat
PJ
Randy
Robin
Scott N.
Sean O.
Shan
Sharyn
Shaun
Stacey
Stacia
Sterling
Sue P
Sydell
Tedra
Theresa
Tim C.
Tim P.
Todd
Tracy
Travis
Trent
Trudi
Vanessa

After graduation, I spent a formative but largely forgettable year as a freshman at UC Riverside. While there, I took a course from the man who created Kwanzaa, and lived with a future recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Another of my roommates was in a respected hardcore rock band, and was studying classical guitar before later transitioning to choreography and dance.

In my year at Riverside, I dug deeper into my theological interests by tying into a weird seminary created to prepare agents of Campus Crusade for Christ for ministry to college students. I was already deep in that world; the 30 minute drive was a minor inconvenience, but a badge of honor. I was a pipsqueek, but I was aiming to be a major force in a little world I now judge to be bonkers.z

an awkward part-time tenure at a nearby fundamentalist seminary, and a weird period of short-term missionary work at UCLA, I moved from Southern Califonia to a tiny, evangelical, liberal arts college outside of Chattanooga.

At that point, my juvenile past became past, and I no longer wished to engage with most of my earlier relationships in San Diego. I judged my life with these wonderful people to have been delightful, but based on a fraudulent version of my self, and on an equivalent, but understandable and disappointing, thirst for social affirmation.

As time has gone by, I've judged the relationships I've built in these spaces to be profound missed opportunities. we all have left a million things left unsaid, things that add resonant truth to our relationships.

These people I've failed to connect with collectively hold a key to deciphering my past.

Many years after moving away from San Diego, I was married with a young son, living in the Astoria neighborhood of NYC, and established in a community of beloved friends who had no connection to my childhood life.

I unexpectedly found myself in San Francisco for a conference. I knew my high school pal, Jon, had settled in San Francisco, but we'd had no contact for decades. I decided to reach out.

Jon showed up at my hotel room and said: "Let's get this out of the way: where are you on the whole Christian thing?" He and I had been dear friends, but our social linkages had been almost entirely based on the trappings of evangelical christianity: bible study, church membership, shared commitment to evangelical political beliefs. Jon no longer identified with those threads, and his directness was a breath of fresh air that made it clear to me that I could approach all of my dear old friends as the new person I'd become, and just say the things I wanted to say, ask the questions I wanted to ask.

I could be New Derek, and still connect meaningfully with the people who knew and loved Old Derek.

In August 2013, I attended my 25 year reunion, having attended no others prior, and had a miserable time because of my own insecurities. I was keenly aware that my peers were now corporate directors and vice presidents, while I was simply doing my job every day. I was also plunged back into a juvenile social milieu where I had no status, a dimished place in a social heirarchy that I had happily forgotten.

But my 30 year reunion was different. I no longer felt humiliated by my lack of status, and was delighted when my peers chuckled appreciatively at my willingness to admit that my career had become a fucking mess. Social status was out the window, and we all seemed to love it.

My wife offered to arrange a 50th birthday party, and asked me to put together a guest list. As I put together the list, I became painfully aware of the tension between the large number of delightful people I've known through the years and the relative paucity of deep friendships. This shouldn't have been shocking; I knew I'd habitually kept people at arms-length. But, GODDAMNIT, was I ok with this looking back now at 50 years old, as I try to live my best life in my final years? Fuck no, something had to change. I loved all of these people, but had blown them off for most of my life.

I was dying to start over. I still embraced the religious values I shared with these people, but I recoiled at my own performance of these values. I loved my Calvinist view of the world, but fundamentally doubted that I was performing these values with anything close to intellectual integrity, and was keenly aware that a gap was forming between the theoretical embrace of these religious ideals, and the real-world credibility of those who attempted to embody them in policy.

Now, many years later, I find myself aggressively cycling back and rebuilding relationships with those who I'd written off in my 20s. I have in the last few years reconnected with roughly 200 people from my past. It has been the most satisfying thing I have ever done.

Extended Family

April Baker
Don Porter
Bob Porter
Tammy Baker
Ben Wickham
Catie Wickham
Niels Odegard
Kaja Odegard
Will
Stine Odegard
David Hed
Gretchen Odegard
Soren Odegard
Anneleise Odegard
Kirk Odegard
Esther Morrison
Brian Morrison
Caril White
Kirk Odegard
Dayton
Adam Belz
Joel Belz
Carol Esther Belz
Steve Hill
Lori O'Donnell
Dana Jackson

Compound

Eric Costello
Katrina Costello
Kim Kaufmann
Ben Kaufmann
Kelly Parker
Todd Parker
Evie Parker
Henry Parker
Joe Kickasola
Linnea Kickasola
Bronwynn Kickasola
Matteo Kickasola

Sussurando

Jen Gienapp
Andy Gienapp
Emmett Gienapp
Megan Gienapp
Abigail Gienapp
Twins Gienapp
Becca White
Skip Gienapp
Andy Malkus
Dana Malkus
Kids Malkus
Bill Rice
Anna Rice
Rice Kids
Todd McDonald
Susan Maynor

Childhood

Jon Kent
Courtney Crane
Nick Ferracone
Kounoshin Shirasaka
Trudi Combs
Dan Crowley
Neil Kjeldsen
John Prell
Pat Mooberry
Jen Ernst
Kevin Schepman
Janine Kinney
Sharyn Michaud
Brian Voigt

High School

Theresa Rogers
Dan Froistad
Jon Wang
Mark Griffie
John Bates
Stacey Bates
Nettie Mason
Blaine Cochrane
Mark Kalbfleisch
Lauren Walters
Elizabeth Lippincott
Brad Brock
Vanessa Wasylchenko
Robin Waters
Doug Smith
Travis Larson
Elaine Scott
Shan Forehand
Kristin Reyes
Stacia Davis
Art Santos
Tedra Nikolai
PJ Yuson
George Pfaff
Mike Baker
Derric Oliver
Scott Napier
Alex Casalme
Alison Kuo
Pam Mingst
Diana Rakoczy
Bobby Beliveau
Tim Cockerham
Brad Peters
Barbara Rollins
Denise Hermanson
Bonnie Burdt
Kevin Womack
Randy Beren
Julia Lankford
Dave Gatzke
Mike Sheffler
Jacqueline Nguyen
Matt Hays
Trent Walker
Sue Pikoraitis
Sydell Howell
Chad Heath
Matt Eby
Todd Bradley
Cam Rogers

College: UC Riverside

Viet Than Nguyen
Eli Nelson
Nicole Meyer
Mitzi
Shigeru Tsukura

College: Covenant

Sean Lynch
Reid Davis
Matt Christian
Jesse Morrison
Derek Halvorsen
Aaron Belz
Reid Davis
Eli Pusser
Elizabeth Miner
Andy Malkus
Scott Clark
Brant Huisman
Beth Christian
Lucas Mininger
Caleb Ludwick
Hardy Thames
Ian Cross
John Young
Chris Hitchcock
Ed Sunder
Laurel Moffat
Cliff Foreman
Sarah Brown
Gale Rowe
Paul Nakhla
Frank Brock

St. Louis

Jon Varner
Wayne Adams
Margie DeWeese-Boyd
Ian DeWeese-Boyd
Kenneth Mitchell
Bekah Jones
Keith Jones

NYU

Rob Sommo

Meetup

Peter Kamali
Keith Corwin
Greg Whalin
Gary Burns
Will Howard
Will Carlough
Matt Daly
Karina
Matt Meeker
Scott Heiferman
Russell Armand

OpenSky

Charles Rogers
David Bean
Chris Keane
John Caplan
Chris
Joel
Andy Stanberry
Justin Hileman
Anthony Wallace
Tyler Greenfield
Andy Fisher
Eugene Wolfson
Matt Pekar
Richard Tarczaly

Knewton

Remi Carton
Eric Garside
Mohan Kolli

Yarn

Donna
Phil

Plickety Switch

James Krause
Amir Bakhtiar
Zack Wang
David Marsteller
Valerie Orth

Astoria Randos

Chris Gerson
Tarah Gerson
Elise Stephen
Tyler Humphreys
Joanne, the Bartender
Stephen, the tenant
Saori Yokoo
Julie Johnson
Michael Johnson
Gene Schmidt
Jocelyn Schmidt
Justus Schmidt
Dimitri
Carl Winter
Lucy Cali
Mary Patterson

DayOne

John Baldwin

Young kids of Friends

gienapp twins
malkus kids
rice kids
gienapp grandkids
kickasola kids?
henry?
maynors

Other

Sam Steele