prom guy

This picture from the "dressing myself" post reminded me of a story.  If you've ever felt extremely inferior to someone, you will relate to this.  This story is about the guy I chose not to humiliate by keeping him in the pic above.  He was (probably still is) a great guy - super sweet, good-looking, blah blah blah.  We went to a private school, and he'd been going there since preschool, I think.  On Christmas break of our senior year, he and his family moved to California.  He sent us a letter after the move, telling us how things were going, and I kept it.  (I'm a girl.  That's what we do.)  Anyway, about 7 years later I found the letter again and thought, "Hey, I'll write X again and say hi and see how things turned out."  What you have to know about our school is that it's a very competitive, private college-prep school and the fact that a number of my classmates went to Ivy League colleges and are now mostly lawyers is considered normal.  For a while, I bought into that vision of success.  On the other hand, I had not yet finished college, wasn't dating anyone (why else would I have written??), and didn't have a career-type job.  I did, however, live on my own, so I was 1 for 4. 

X was kind enough to return my letter, which was passed to him by a relative that still lived at that address.  He is a humble, nice guy, so I'm sure he didn't mean to make me feel like crap - I can do that all by myself.  His life was like some kind of Disney movie - he and his wife enjoyed jogging on the beach with their white German Shepherd, Laila (or something).  He'd graduated from Stanford or somewhere, and was moving up in the graphic design world - had I seen the current Toyota commercial?  He'd worked on that.  Etc. etc.  Well.  Okay, then.  That's the end of that.

But he unknowingly got me again about 7 years later when he and his graphic design team were nominated for an Academy Award (naturally).  I emailed the alumni office of our school and said hey, this is really great, even though he didn't actually graduate with us we still consider him one of our own, you should put this in the next newsletter, etc. etc.  Their reply?  Well, no mere mention in the newsletter!  Not only did they already know about the nomination, they had flown him in from CA that month to speak at their annual mentors dinner!  Are you KIDDING me?  AGAIN?

It's been about 6 years since he won the Oscar (you didn't really think he was going to lose, did you?), and since we all know things happen in threes, I can't wait to see what happens next.  I'm going to traffic court next month; he's probably accepting the Nobel Prize.

In all seriousness, X, I'm very proud of and happy for you!  (My therapist made me add that part.)