Overwhelmingly missed an old friend

[melonies]

NC'd because this is ridiculous.

I used to work in a very social-for-my-age -group- job at the weekend when I was 16-19 (high street retailer) . This morning, I woke up and I deeply, deeply missed one of my old friends from that job. Same gender, no romantic feelings ever (both heterosexual) and met outside of work a handful of times, maybe one deep chat in our life etc. I have had many closer friendships in my life, but all of a sudden I really missed her. I had a Facebook clear out a few years ago but re-added her today and she accepted and I'd love to message her but I feel like anything will sound weird/unexpected. I live on the other side of the country to her too. We were never best friends or hung out loads but I just really, really missed her this morning and I've not even thought of her for about 7 years. AIBU to miss a not close old friend?

It does sound a bit mad. Is it just missing that stage in your life, if you and she weren’t close and you seldom saw her outside of work?

But I’d just message her and tell her she just came into your head. Nothing weird about that. It’s not as if you’re suggesting you walk the entire Camino de Santiago together.

You probably dreamt about her and have forgotten the dream but remembered the emotion. This happens a lot for me

Just ask her how she is doing and ask what her life is now.

and friendship will form or it will wane. The fact she has said yes to speak to you is great too, so you can’t be that weird!

It might be that you had a dream that you don't remember that she featured in. We don't remember a lot of dreams but they still leave impressions.
I once dreamt I was going out with Morten Harket from Aha even though I'd never paid them any attention. I still think of him fondly!

Send her a message saying you just remembered something you did together. Good times etc. See if she replies.

Send something like this "Hi Jane, I was thinking about you earlier and realised how long it's been since we last spoke. How are you?" Nothing mad, I think she'd think it's nice you remembered her!

Yeah it's a bit weird, this sort of thing doesn't happen with me.
I can fondly remember someone without "missing" them.
I wouldn't message after all this time!

Well...

I did it, I messaged her. She read it and hasn't replied

I think in this situation (or maybe it’s just in my friendship circle of my temperament) it’s Very Normal to message someone, say something like “I just thought of you after all these years, would you like to catch up?”.

Sometimes it goes somewhere, sometimes it does not. That bit, I don’t tend to read a lot into (or at least I try not to). People vary quite widely in how they respond, IME.

It's not weird! I love hearing from old friends, hope she replies

Curious to know what happened?