A Bit of Redemption, Part 1

Hey look, it's a second post in as many days.  See, miracles do happen.  I needed an update of sorts, of neurotic sorts.  In my Facebook email notification hell, there was a ray of sunshine.  Okay, a few.  First, while perusing pictures of my non-friends friends, I came across someone I used to know.  I met this person when I was eleven and we were friends through high school, until the military called and left me there alone for my last two years.  Perhaps alone isn't the right word, but it was definitely a much more lonely place.  Anyway, there he was a blip in a list of friends that had nothing to do with me.  So, like everyone else, I sent a friend request, because, after all, isn't that what facebook is for, seeking friends in the most obscure corners of the universe?  That was yesterday.  Today, people hopped on and offline and some requested the fake friendship that the site offers, and others accepted mine.  Whatever.

However, while speaking to my sister this morning I happened to mention that out of all the people that have been searched, sought, found, and ignored he was the one person I would really like to hear from.  Then, wouldn't you know, like magic this afternoon he accepted my friend request, and instantly hopped on my wall with the line "It's been a long time, how have you been".  How innocent right.  After a quick two sentence update he chatted me up.  We were on their for about ten or so minutes.  No biggie.  Then he asked me if we could chat later and set a time.  We had a date to chat.  I had never had a date to chat, a cyber-date if you will.  Then paranoid me goes all obsessive and thinks that it isn't that, it's just catching up.  The thing is, it didn't feel like catching up.  Maybe I didn't want it to be just catching up.  Maybe, he thinks I'm someone else, and why the hell am I getting so ridiculous.  It was bad people.  So I call my sister and tell her and she's all nervous for me.  Why am I so nervous you ask?  It's a long and boring story.  Here is the short version.

New quiet kid.  Loud talky girl.  Girl really likes boy.  Boy hangs out with girl, kind of.  They argue fairly often, he was bothersome, but so darned cute. Skinny blond kid with the face of an angel and a bit of hell in his eye, he had a deep voice with a hint of a drawl and it didn't suit him.  It was the voice of a man.  They end the year in an argument and he goes to high school, leaving her behind for another year.  When in band camp (yes it's a real thing and it didn't resemble American Pie in the slightest) the summer before freshman year, there he was. A nod and a wave and nothing more.  She ignores it, heart a little broken.  Maybe they really aren't friends anymore.  Apparently, being awkward and neurotic are innate to my nature.  By the time school starts, they're back to that flirty not flirty thing that kids do.  The kind of flirting that in their own mind is embarrassingly and painfully obvious, and to the rest of the world is clearly visible; but they dared not believe the possibility. What if they were wrong, oh the humiliation of the dreaded rejection.  Anyway, he pushed her buttons for fun, she gets annoyed that he can push her buttons at all.  Through the years of this non-relationship, she remained clueless as did he.  They lived in the hope of one day.  School continued, each with their own lives, relishing the overlap and stolen glances, thinking, "if only" and never realizing the truth.  Through other crushes and heartbreaks, through family drama that always accompanies growing up, and through the sheer nightmare that is high school, a smile never ceased to brighten her day.  They were friends, blind to what could have been.  Then one day, he was gone.

Until yesterday that is.  So, back to this chat thing.  Usually I am not a fan of instant messaging.  It's annoying, and gets in the way of whatever I'm trying to do.  So, of course, I barely have time to feed, bathe, and sleep the kiddies because facebook kind of sucks that way.  People that I have really missed, some friends and some family, are quick to chat.  Which is great since no one picks up a phone anymore.  But between the other friend that I haven't seen in seven years, and my sister-in-law which I haven't spoken to in three, well, there wasn't much time to get things done.  You don't want that first contact to be "hey, how are ya, gotta run".  Well, maybe you do, but it seems so rude. So by the time I was done with my sister-in-law, who I knew when the above drama began in middle school by the way.  It was time for the date, the much anticipated, in a sick to my stomach dreadful kind of way, non date. 

The fact that I was all eager is a bit disturbing, just so you know.