The past came knocking on my door this morning...

Unreal re-connection...

I have to tell you guys about the email that I found in my inbox this morning. It was from someone named Chris Umiastowski. I saw the name - it was associated with a recent Substack article I had written. He had read one of my articles and reached out via Substack email. Nothing really came to my mind in terms of a face or a memory. So I started to read the email. He said he knew me from Dollard des Ormeaux - a suburb of Montreal. He said he knew me from Westpark School. He said he was in my Grade 5 class.

Wow. I lived in Dollard for 4 years.

I went to Westpark school for Grade 5.

My brain started to scan for a Chris that I may have known in Grade 5. And then an image came into my head. Holy cow. Chris! The guy I used to play guns with after school and on weekends. With Alex and Clint in my neighborhood. Clint was the guy I liked because he loved ‘V’ as much as me. It was like a prerequisite for me: if you don’t love ‘V’, I cannot relate to you. Playing guns was my favorite thing to do. (That might come in handy in the coming years, eh?) I ran to my old box of photos from the past and dug out my Grade 5 school photo and there he was.

Unreal. Unreal that I remember. Unreal that he remembers. Unreal that he found me halfway around the world. Unreal that I have this bloody photo from all those years ago. Unreal. I sent the photo back to him and am waiting for a confirmation that it is indeed him, but I know it’s him.

Jessica’s Westpark Grade 5 class - Can you find me?

So what most people who know me don’t know about me, is that I moved around a lot with my family when we were growing up. And with that came new lots of friends and new schools and new neighborhoods. It was great in a way, but it was really difficult in other ways. We never really had childhood friends. From Ottawa to Wawa to Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie to Montreal to St. John’s. Knowing this now, perhaps then my amazing readers can understand how impeccably and incredibly amazing this re-connection is to me. Via Substack of all things.

I am so grateful for this platform. And in a weird way, I am grateful for these psychopaths trying to take control of humanity and digitize them with their social credit score nonsense. Because, without it all, I wouldn’t be re-connecting like this with the people I knew and loved from my childhood and past in general. How unbelievably sweet. Thank you tyrants. You made me happy once again today. I know how much you hate that. :)

Looking forward to great email chats Chris! And if you still talk to Alex or Chris, please pass on my email! I would love to reconnect.