Strange

So, I must admit I'm something of a stalker. I get obsessed about certain people or details, and I hunt them down, without malice.

There's some stalking in my past. I'm not proud of it, but it makes a good story. A week ago I was at my 10-year college reunion - enjoyable, and less strewn with emotional land mines than I might have guessed. I saw a friend I haven't seen in all of the ten years, and who I have wanted to see, because I felt she would appreciate the fact that I fell madly in love with an ex-boyfriend of hers and...well, there's stalking involved, but I won't get into that. (Becky knows this story...)

Last weekend, I told my college friend that story, and it was so strange...in the story was a person in whom I had invested much emotion and thought, and no matter how you looked at it, I had been completely wrong to do so, clearly obsessive and pretty wacky. I did finally move on from thinking about him, but a few years ago I tried to get in touch with a bunch of friends I'd lost track of, and he was one of them. I googled his name, got what I think was a current office address and sent a letter in a batch of about 40 letters. (To 40 different people - I didn't send him 40 letters. That WOULD be crazy.) I never heard anything from him, but the google revealed that we actually lived in the same city. Maybe. His office was here, I didn't try to find a home address. I wasn't surprised he didn't respond - I did not come off well in the story, and in his place, I'm not sure I would have responded to someone like myself. But I kept thinking someday we'd run into each other.

Well, telling that story brought it up in my mind and I googled anew today. He's working in St. Louis (ironic), and he's done quite well and he looks...washed out and drab. Jowly. Seeing that face, I can't escape the fact that I don't know him at all, that he has pretty much been a fictional character in my life. It's like being released from captivity, a captivity that kept me safe. I'm sure he's very happy...no, I'm not sure of that, how can I be? But I hope he's happy, and not sad or drab or washed out.

Not that I was that attractive in them, but I sure am glad that the most recent photos of me online are in flamboyant red wigs. I prefer looking puffy and overmadeup to drab.