Funny, That

It's a funny thing... I had an email last week from someone I always wanted to know better in high school. I emailed back, and then spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out WHY I thought he was who I thought he was back then. And I've yet to come up with something believable.

I always thought of him as a kind and gentle person, but pretty self-contained and fairly strong. Quiet, possibly even painfully shy, and yet someone with strong ideas of how to get along in the world. What did I base this on? I have no fugcking idea. My most recent memory is of him sitting slouched in the back of a classroom in his poofy down coat, with his pimp-wannabe baseball cap on backwards and a really bored expression on his face. Yeah.

In the whole of high school, I think we had maybe six conversations. And none of them lasted more than 20 seconds-- except the one where my mom forgot to pick me up from school and it was pitch black and the school was totally deserted, and HE showed up and offered me a ride home. That time, the poor guy was stuck in his truck with me for a full 20 minutes of horror.

I think what usually happened was that I wanted so much to be liked by this guy (remember-- high school) and was so self-conscious and weird as only a pre-pubescent girl can be that about 20 seconds into the conversation, I'd say something that was either really dumb, really bizarre, or both-- and he'd get this "deer in the headlights" look, and stop talking to me. This is how I remember ALL of our interactions. I don't even know what his parents did for a living (or do now, for that matter), I don't know his brother's name or age, I don't know what this guy did after school or even what sports he played-- if any.

But anyway, I got this email last week, and thought "HEY! How cool would it be to finally find out who he actually IS-- and maybe have a whole conversation, too!" So I responded. It's been a week, and I haven't heard anything back from his end. And I have to say, I'm finding it funny. THIS time, I don't think I said anything dumb, foolish, or weird. THIS time, I simply have the inclination to laugh at how familiar the whole situation seems to me. And I'm writing him another email if I don't hear back in a few more days. I'd sort of like to know what happened to shut him up. I'm honesty curious. After all-- HE STARTED IT!

Yeah. Between not hearing from him (YET), and not hearing (YET) from any of my applied-to libraries, I'm feeling kinda lost in the sea of interweberry. There's this book of poems that I really loved in middle and high school because the writer echoed so many of my own confused feelings about my life at that point-- the title is something like "Hello World, It's Me- Margaret." I remember the title being pulled from a poem that discussed that feeling of unwanted invisibility...

Invisibility. I has it.
...Funny, That.