Knowing the Past to See the Future

Reconnected with my first boyfriend on Facebook recently. This is after we had stopped being friends about a dozen years ago. Hold up. Erase that. This is after I decided he no longer deserved to have me in his life because he took our friendship for granted. About a year ago or so I thought of him. Not because I missed him or felt like I was missing something; it was way more narcissistic than that. It is me we’re talking about here. I thought of him because I wondered where my life was going and how much I had or hadn’t changed/grown/evolved over the last 25 years and he was a good marker to possibly tell me that.

He knew me best. We spent the better part of 13 years together, off and on and on and off and on and on. He was my best friend. He was my first love. He was my first everything. We complemented each other so well. We had the same interests. We liked spending time together. We could hang out at any time with such ease. He’s the only one then who knew I wanted to write even before I did. He’s the only one now who would share my passion for finding a lost, favorite song from our childhood. His son’s name is one letter off the name I have tucked away for the daughter I may never have.

So what about now? From when we last knew each other, my path has greatly diverted from where it was headed. Along the way, I feel like I’ve changed quite a bit from the person I was. But have I really? He is one of the few, if maybe the only, who would actually know. And of course it makes me curious. When I peruse through his Facebook pages and from what I know about his life, he seems very much the same. His taste in clothes is as trendy and metro as ever. His use of hair product is still keeping the petroleum demand up. He’s still got those skinny legs. His vernacular still contains many words from the urban dictionary even as ghetto as he is not. He still likes nice things and creature comforts…nice cars, nice homes in cul de sacs and trips to Hawaii. He still hangs out with a shitload of Asians. I always knew he would love being a dad. He’s probably an amazing cook these days. The way he and his wife converse seems playful and fun. It looks like he still loves to dance and he’s still a baller. I wonder if his favorite number is still 17 or if that died soon after our friendship did.

How different am I than the girl he knew? How much am I the same? Am I more than we expected? Am I less? Put aside the last dozen years, put aside the wonderful relationships we have in our lives today…could we fall back into the kind of friendship we used to have? I’m not talking about the late night movies, the SpaghettiOs® study sessions, the walks up to the viewpoint, the rap challenges, the city cruising or anything like that but would we have endless things to talk about, interesting things to contemplate and exciting discoveries to share? Would we sit with dueling laptops and swap music? Would we want to see the same movies, root for the same sport teams and share favorite recipes and holiday traditions? Would he love to tell me the latest thing his son learned, the silly but sweet thing his wife said, the heartache he’s feeling because his dad has cancer? Could I cry on his shoulder telling him about how hard it was to lose my mom, how the room went cold the minute my grandfather left this earth as I sat by his side and how I loved being a dog mom? None of these things are things we need each other for, but he’s the only one who could say, “I remember when…”

Or would we just exchange some polite niceties, laugh at a couple of memories and then look at our watches and excuse ourselves because we’re too different now to really understand or care about the other’s life today? I know it doesn’t matter. We are both where we are because of the choices we’ve happily made…but sometimes I just wonder. I wonder if what he knows about my past could tell me about my future.

— Ballyhoo Backcaster