Blast from the Past

This past week has been almost bizarre. I've bumped in to or heard from three people I genuinely never expected to see or hear from again. I live in a decent-sized town so it's not really surprising on all three counts, but two of them really shocked me.

The first one was my ex-best friend, Sam. She and I were friends for three and a half years. We ended our friendship just a couple months before graduation. It's still so weird to look back at the yearbook and see the Senior Ad our parents bought for us. I spent every spare moment I had with Sam. She basically is the main reason I stopped letting people walk all over me. I was mentally and emotionally abused by her in more ways than I can describe. Let's just say she taught me exactly what not to look for in friends. I bumped into her at Walmart and it was the weirdest and most awkward conversation I've been in. I'm glad it lasted only a few seconds.

The second person I've heard from was this guy I used to work with, John. He texted me asking if I'd graduated this weekend, and I informed him that I'll be graduating in December. We texted back and forth for a while, and apparently he wants to have lunch with me sometime in a couple weeks. Did I mention that I had a huge crush on him? Or that we went on a three day trip to Chicago together to see Paul McCartney at Wrigley? Oh, I guess I forgot to add that. My bad.

Finally, tonight's surprise. I walked into the massage place my mom so graciously pays for me to visit on occasion. She had the time slot before me, so she informed me that I'd know my masseuse for the evening. It's a girl I used to play softball with who's a few years younger than me and now pregnant. (For the record, I've got nothing against people getting pregnant when they're prepared, but hers was far from planned.)

I'm not saying anything against these people personally, but it's pretty clear that two of the three aren't driven to make it past the lives they have. One of them was planning on law school, and currently balancing a job at Devon with night classes. One of them got fired as a manager at Arby's and had to bus tables on the overnight shift at IHOP. I'm kind of wondering what people think when they bump in to me, though.

I've always hated how it sounds when I answer people's inquiries. "I'm going to school, still. My degree is in advertising. I don't know exactly what I want to do, yet." I'm in waiting, I guess. Regardless, I don't mind being in waiting as long as I don't become complacent. I'm getting out of here someday very soon. It's going to be awesome when I do, and I just really hope I stop bumping in to people I used to know for a bit.