It’s amazing how much you change over a period of time without realizing. Two recent reunions with past friends have made me examine my life’s course, both ahead and behind me.
While browsing through Facebook, the reconnection capital of the Internet, I spotted my best friend from elementary school. This in itself was a miracle, as I was a military brat who traveled all up and down the East Coast. Some of you may whine about the Facebook changes, but I am now glad I joined.
It was quite weird to see this girl (I’ll call her Mona). Not in a bad way mind you, but I haven’t laid eyes on her since I was 10. Obviously Mona grew up, as I did, but in my mind, she was still that freckle-faced petite kid I went to Girl Scouts with. Now plastered on Facebook is a picture of her at 22 and needless to say, she looks a bit different! Mona has since graduated college and is now living in Detroit.
Why did we lose touch? Probably because we were going to schools in separate states and began to not have much in common. It also could have been me being a jerk and sending a pretty nasty e-mail to her about a fight I don’t even remember now. Either way, Mona and I severed our ties. For the record, though, we had a nice reunion and I did apologize to her (so please don’t think I’m too horrible).
This got me thinking – how many other people could I have kept in touch with but didn’t? How many other kids have I hurt because I was a spoiled, snot-faced child for whom it was always ‘her-way-or-the-highway?’
I’ll probably never know. I can chalk up my actions to hormones or kids just being kids, but things like that stick with you, regardless. I had a recent discussion with an adviser of mine about her child and it reminded me of just how hard being a small fry was. I know you can’t find every person you were mean to throughout your life (even if it’s a really good premise for “My Name is Earl”). I guess you just have to hope they have forgotten, just as you have, or have moved on.
Another recent encounter brought back my oldest companions, humiliation and self-doubt. I ran into a boy (I’ll call him Steve) that I hadn’t seen since high school and made a total ass of myself, mainly due to the fact that I had a gigantic crush on this poor guy and I don’t think he had a clue. This being the case, I reverted back to my awkward high school mentality and froze, making it just a horrible social situation. I’ll give Steve credit; he tried to catch up and act normal. I, however, became a stammering moron, trying to respond, but instead ended up telling inappropriate jokes and giving one-word grunts as answers. I honestly have no idea what happened to me. I’m normally a funny, bright person to be around and have plenty of friends who used to be romantic interests. But, for some reason, around Steve, I was a bumbling, paralyzed ninth-grader still discovering my womanhood and the opposite sex.
Steve is further proof that I have grown and changed. Time gently blurs our experiences as brace-faced, googly-eyed teens. We try to forget those painful moments of not knowing what to say or do, but as in my case, certain people manage to bring back that feeling of uncertainty, of self-consciousness.
I’ve had more than my fair share of actual, successful relationships, but somehow the ones that didn’t happen manage to work their way up onto a pedestal. This also may be the reason I acted like such a spaz. The expectations of the unknown usually exceed the reality when it comes to dating.
Being someone’s better half for the past three years leads me to believe that my googly-eyed stage is thankfully over. But the what-ifs still plague me, as they probably do for every person who has ever hoped for a hook-up that never happened. Would it have been good? How long would we have been together? Why didn’t it happen?
No one can answer these questions. You can only come to the conclusion that you did the best you could at the time, as is the case with everything in life, and you are on the path you’re supposed to be.
So what does this leave you with? The knowledge that you were a horrible kid and an even worse young adult? I hope not. I just want you to read my experiences, maybe see a little of yourself in them and not be so hard on the person you were or are today. Life is constantly throwing new things at you and you can’t be perfect 100 percent of the time. Someday, this will all be funny and maybe you’ll have a great story to tell your kids as they fumble their way through the next stage of their all-too-familiar journey.