It's not enough that it's pouring outside
I did something kinda stupid today. I googled Old Boyfriend.
We were 20-something the last time I saw him. He'd just gotten a graduate degree in a field he'd pretty much decided he hated, but he hadn't yet figured out how to break the news to his dad, who wanted OB to follow in his footsteps. OB admired me for being what he called a mutant. He thought I was oh so cool, but really I was just depressed. Encouraging him to stay in his band? To keep his mold-infested room in the group house he shared with four strung-out roommates and one bathroom? C'mon, dude. Live your art. Like a crazed pinball, he kept shooting back and forth between me and his overachieving college sweetheart. When I was finally willing to believe that he wasn't gonna stick around this time either, I told him he had to make a choice. So. He chose.
In all these years, I haven't thought of him. But this afternoon I was reading something that made me mildly curious about seeing if I could find him. Ah, the google, frightening in the length and breadth of its capability to seek, to find. I learned that OB is now the CEO of a small but stupendously innovative, loftily praised, fabulously successful software startup. Would you be surprised if I told you that he married College Sweetheart? Nah. Me either. She is, ironically, a writer. Published. Reviewed and interviewed. Busy with reading tours and in-store signings. Which she fits in between managing the many-million-dollar home in Old Money Suburb and raising the kids. Two. A boy. A girl.
She's got publicity shots online. Today was the first time I ever saw what she looked like. I was hoping to see someone I'd like, but the warmth is in her pose, not her eyes. It's impossible to know whether the photo doesn't capture it or it's just not there to capture.
I can't imagine living the kind of life they seem to have together. It's so obvious OB and I were never meant to be.
Though the summer home on Vacation Island? In the divorce negotiations, I really would've fought for that.
We were 20-something the last time I saw him. He'd just gotten a graduate degree in a field he'd pretty much decided he hated, but he hadn't yet figured out how to break the news to his dad, who wanted OB to follow in his footsteps. OB admired me for being what he called a mutant. He thought I was oh so cool, but really I was just depressed. Encouraging him to stay in his band? To keep his mold-infested room in the group house he shared with four strung-out roommates and one bathroom? C'mon, dude. Live your art. Like a crazed pinball, he kept shooting back and forth between me and his overachieving college sweetheart. When I was finally willing to believe that he wasn't gonna stick around this time either, I told him he had to make a choice. So. He chose.
In all these years, I haven't thought of him. But this afternoon I was reading something that made me mildly curious about seeing if I could find him. Ah, the google, frightening in the length and breadth of its capability to seek, to find. I learned that OB is now the CEO of a small but stupendously innovative, loftily praised, fabulously successful software startup. Would you be surprised if I told you that he married College Sweetheart? Nah. Me either. She is, ironically, a writer. Published. Reviewed and interviewed. Busy with reading tours and in-store signings. Which she fits in between managing the many-million-dollar home in Old Money Suburb and raising the kids. Two. A boy. A girl.
She's got publicity shots online. Today was the first time I ever saw what she looked like. I was hoping to see someone I'd like, but the warmth is in her pose, not her eyes. It's impossible to know whether the photo doesn't capture it or it's just not there to capture.
I can't imagine living the kind of life they seem to have together. It's so obvious OB and I were never meant to be.
Though the summer home on Vacation Island? In the divorce negotiations, I really would've fought for that.
posted by dirty martini & tequila fog at 3:45 PM
2 Comments:
Okay, see, this is why you have a duty to post more often. The blogosphere needs you.
And I'll bet College Sweetheart has really bad breath. Or something.
LB, just what kind of newfangled thingie do you have that alerts you to the one post a quarter I do? Or is it (shriek of Halloween horror) ESP? Or is that you (shriek of Halloween horror with hands pressed to face) check every day?
So glad you're reading.
TF
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