I Swore I Wouldn't Do This...

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine whom I hadn't spoken with in six years. He found me through MySpace, through mutual friends because I don't have a profile. We talked for two hours, we laughed together, and it was so similar to old times it was eerie. But we talked about high school, too, and now I'm rattled just thinking about everything that happened there -- all the embarrassment and the mistakes and my utter lack of understanding as to how life works.

"You should get on MySpace!" my messianic old friend said. "Everybody's on it, and it's a great way to reconnect with people."

"Maybe I will," I said, smiling. Because networking is good, right? New York has taught me that at least. And I entertained the idea for a while. Until I started looking at the profiles of the homecoming queens and my old crushes and other vastly better-adjusted people whom I probably would have gotten along with if I hadn't been such a fucking basketcase. The trip down memory lane was depressing and dredged up memories I've been working for years to suppress and paint over.

I'm more than a thousand miles away from home, and considering where I'm from, the fact alone that I've moved away is something to celebrate. But I don't feel it sometimes. Sometimes I just remember feeling so awkward, so hated, so alone. If MTV's "Made" has taught us anything, it's that we should be more comfortable with who we are even when we feel like standing alone in a corner and sulking. It's been years now. Why haven't I learned that lesson?