Ask HN: Ghosted contact who I met a conference. Now need their help

First off, I want to acknowledge my mistake. I know the industry is a small place and I generally try not to be unprofessional or a bad person. However, I made a mistake and would like some opinions on how to move forward.

I met a senior person at a conference. They got very excited to meet me and wanted to hire me into a role. Now for various personal reasons, I was not in a good place at that time (it was the start of Covid plus other crap was going on in my life that made me just hang on to things as best as I could). Long story short, I ghosted this person (they tried contacting me through email, linkedin and I just ignored this person). Again, this is my bad. Now, 2 years later, this person posted a job ad and I think I'm a great fit.

I first thought, I'll just apply blindly or send the person an email ignoring the past.

My inner self is very uncomfortable with this. I govern myself with very strong ethics and try to live a no-bs life. My inner self says I should either apologize for the previous ghosting or just not apply. Thoughts?