Quality Or Quantity: Textiles

I saw pictures from high school, tonight when I was cleaning out my drawers, looking for underwear and a cross. See, I get up tomorrow (at 7 a.m.) to work a law school graduation and I ended up peering into a drawer that had developed pictures in it. (Imagine that. Physical pictures, with negatives!) Those pictures dragged me back, kindly, back to different times.

Apparently, I spent a lot of time in the computer lab, with older girls that I thought were attractive and if I remember correctly, treated me like their younger brother. There are worse fates, I suppose. There's pictures of spending time at Six Flags, which for the life of me, I don't remember except being on a bus to go there and get back to school on literally, the far other side of the city. This ignores the pictures of which I am embarrassed after concerts and being so young and being so incredibly excited to see a band (in some huge arena) who'se members I am beginning to become closer to five, six years later.

So there's change and, I'll probably mention the pictures to the drummer the next time I see him online, so that bodes well, right? But.

There was something about innocence in those photos, but something...else. I genuinely did not remember the cute girl who was the math professor's (or was it science?) daughter that I look back on and now realize that she may have been my first real crush when I was old enough to have an understanding of what it meant. I remember she liked to sing. She also liked the Grateful Dead.

I forgot about her existence. Completely, until I saw that picture again. This was all pre-Facebook and...well, I guess people are right. I will forget. You will forget. I will probably forget all about a couple of girls within 4 or 5 years. I am aware that's a long time.

The more frightening question this brings up is when I found the other piece of memorabilia, the Celtic cross purchased in Ireland when I was 19. There was a prolonged breakup that happened and began to unravel over that trip, which cast a pall over the time I spent there. (Strangely enough, my mother, who otherwise is a by the book kind of woman, offered to get me a Guiness while I was there, where it would be legal, despite having an allergic aversion to me imbing alcohol in the States.) The relationship was pretty much over, or I kept trying to force it and it wouldn't take and it spilled over the Atlantic and over the last semster of that year.

I said a lot of things over that period of time I'm not proud of and have since sworn never to say again, which, so far, I've been keeping. I still hang my head in shame even obliquely mentioning that.

I have to go to bed now, but I'm left with the question: Would I remember that girlfriend (my first!) if it wasn't for the absolute douchebaggery that I pulled and the Fallout-esque aftermath? I hope not, but seeing those pictures makes me wonder now, all the same.

The internet is like amber for the things that embarass us (and occasionally make us proud) and looking at those pictures make me wonder how I ever stuck those dead bugs with pins...