flash from the past

the danger with going back home to where i grew up is that there is always a small chance of running into someone you know. good or bad, it is still the past. i am a complex breed of "fear of change" and "what the hell, why not?" mostly it depends on my mood and who i am running away from. and that is how i ended up in new york city studying medicine. when i talk on the phone with my best friends (especially the one that still lives at home) we sometimes stumble on "guess who i ran into today?" It is quite interesting sometimes, and other times quite horrifying. a few months ago she had a run in with an ex-classmate, a boy that was in quite a few of our classes and that was by no means "close" to any one of us. funny factoid: in my senior yearbook there was a nice note from him (and, yes, he had a girlfriend at the time) that he had a crush on me in high school. lucky for me, it was written on the second to last day of school, so i did not have to endure the countless jokes that provoked in front of him. since then my encounters with this particular boy have been very few (maybe twicce in 6 years, it helps i don't live at home anymore).

and being a science nerd, the world is a really small place. there was once a boy that liked (i know that is hard to believe), and since he transferred from my college i have never seen him. but this of course does not keep my best friend from college from calling me whenever she sees him around town. i know, what are the chances. lucky for me she doesn't talk to him and vice versa. however, another one of my college friends does still speak to him and i get, an unrequested might i add, update about his life from her.

try this one for a small world: one of the boys that i had a crush on during my very first summer church camp was the brother of these two girls that i was eventually friends with (wrote letters and everything) and who went to the church where my youth pastor grew up. ok not that impressive, but still a small world. so why in the world do i remember all this stuff. mostly cuz i am bored and completely lack a love life (which i don't think is such a bad thing considering what some of my friends are going through).

but this is me we are talking about and if i can't keep myself entertained with a new boy i am likely to fall into the trap of looking at an old boy for entertainment. however, in my current situation, that is probably the last thing i need, because the last boys that had any impact on me are just not good for me period. so what should i do?

and what if you get a second chance to make a move? with someone you remember fondly. not the love of your life or the biggest crush, but someone who was there and you remember him and he remembers you. and at some point in time there may have been something, but you always ran in the other direction because he wasn't taken and when he was taken he was smart enough to stay away. what would you do if he found you and, even though it was a really long shot (hence the appeal b/c let's be honest i still run like crazy), you put yourself out there to see what could happen. probably only a friendship, but, hey, what is there to lose?

i always tried to believe that if i were ever given a second chance i would take it because i would see it as a sign. but signs are dangerous things to believe in if you are not reading them right or if you choose to ignore them or interpret them to whatever makes sense in your crazy head.

ahh, what to do when the past comes back to stare you in the face and say, "here is your chance again, what are you going to do?"