*sigh*

I just received an alumni email from my college and clicked through to a virtual tour. I think I regret it as I was time-machined back to 1990. I’m late for Freshman Seminar because I ran into John Kelly, the senior I had a crush on for pretty much the entire year. The man who kissed me once at a party and regretted it as I pursued a relationship with him and became that girl in Say Anything who wrote 357 songs that were all about Joe.  Because he is kind, and patient, and intends to kiss me again when he feels like it and when we have had enough to drink that he can use it as an excuse, he talks to me. I am wearing black leggings that end with WigWam socks stuffed into duck boots. It’s early November and too cold for me to just be wearing the itchy, oversized Guatemalan sweater with the twigs sticking out of it that carried me through most of September and October.  My head is tilted. My mouth is smiling. My books are held tightly to my chest. We agree that maybe we might meet for lunch at the Union, that is…if we see each other, if he can make it, but I know he won’t show and that I will wait hopefully anyway.  This will continue until we near the end of the year and I fall in love with someone else. He never notices.

Comments

[scott]

357 songs? Let hear a few... Joooooohnnnnn we neeeeed tooo booooooooond.... stuff like that?

[Suzi]

Oh yes!! I totally do that too when I get alumni stuff. Everytime I see someone with the oldstyle yellow Sony Walkman TAPE player, I am immediately transported to my freshman year at OHio State walking across The Oval and listening to INXS. Yikes.

[pnuts mama]

heh, i still have that sweater, and i break it out occasionally when i take a trip down memory lane. which has been happening a lot lately, for whatever reason- simpler times? no kids? who knows.

two things:
1. i can't believe i'm nearly 10 years out of my undergrad- i was with a new mamafriend and she was telling me about her husband who had moved away from their neighborhood to college 15 years ago and i thought to myself "gee, he doesn't seem that old" until i realized "i am that old, too."

2. i was totally that stalker my fm year too. except i wore the poor man down until he finally succumbed to my brilliance and decided marrying me would be easier than trying to explain to his parents why this wacky girl kept driving by the house. :) to be fair, i hated those string-along guys- my husband and i had equal bs to work out before we were really ready to commit to each other, the seeds of love and friendship were always there, just needed some nourishment and time to grow. the guys that would keep girls they knew were interested at-the-ready for the occasional hook-up or ego boost were just pathetic, imo.

[patois]

Yeah, pathetic me did the same thing. I can never return to the college -- virtually or otherwise -- as I cringe when I remember freshman year and the man I adored who said he adored me. Broke my heart and my spirit. Turns out I was his beard. Yeah, he was gay. "Way back then," some folks still stayed in the closet. SIGH.