Looking Into The Past

I had a lot of free time at work today (i.e., they gave me nothing to do or to work on the entire day), so I logged onto myspace (which somehow has become unblocked in the office recently, along with everything else that used to be blocked) and browsed around looking for Braintree High School grads. When you’re sitting there strapped to a desk for 8 straight hours, web activities like this are about as wild as you can get.

It’s funny looking at the profiles of people I haven’t seen or even thought of for 7 years. Some people look unrecognizable, and others look exactly the same. Some have moved far away, some have gotten married, and some even have children by now at age 25. Then there are those I don’t even remember at all. My graduating class was a shade over 300 people. Around a third of them are on myspace, and I feel like I never met or even laid eyes on a third of those.

The class of ’99 never had a 5-year reunion (our class president was living in Australia at the time, and nobody else picked up the ball to organize it, or so the story goes), so logging onto myspace and doing a class of ’99 search is almost feels like the next best thing, or at least a virtual replacement until our 10th year reunion rolls around.

While I was poring over old photos for a slideshow that was displayed at Nick’s wedding, I came across a Polaroid of me and my first-ever crush all the way back from elementary school- her name was Siobhan. I met her on the first day of 1st grade, and man, was I in love. Yes, I was only 6 at the time, but I adored her to no end. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever met. We were never good friends or anything, but we were in the same class in 3rd grade, and for one term we were assigned to sit next to each other. I was in heaven! She was just a really cool girl, and Siobhan even played for the boys’ little league baseball team instead of playing softball with the girls. I was impressed.

You can’t imagine how dismayed I was when I showed up for the first day of 6th grade and she was nowhere to be seen. She hadn’t moved away, but her parents had enrolled her in a private catholic school across town, Archbishop Williams, commonly referred to as Archie’s. I never saw her again. I was 11, madly (and secretly) in love, and absolutely devastated. That was 14 years ago, but I never forgot about her. She was my first love, after all, even if she (or anyone else, for that matter) had no idea.

So when I was browsing through BHS grads yesterday online, I thought, “Hey, I wonder if Siobhan is on here.” I clicked on Archbishop Williams, scrolled through a few pages, and there she was. I was stunned. She looked like I pictured she would, and she still lived in the south shore area. I didn’t see her listing any colleges; I was surprised because I always thought she was pretty smart. And then I saw it- she had a child. And she wasn’t married, either. Now I was even more stunned. The wind was knocked out of me like I took a blow to the stomach. I sort of sat there in my chair for a good 10 seconds, dazed.

I suppose I had idealized her in my mind all these years- perhaps I expected to see her...well, I don’t know what I expected. Enrolled in grad school somewhere on the west coast, saving poor Ugandan orphans in her spare time? I don’t know. I just didn’t expect her to be, you know...a mom.

For me right now, the idea of having kids is just so intangible and unthinkable; I have trouble wrapping my head around the idea that anyone I grew up with and went to school with is now a parent. I’m having a difficult enough time picturing some of my classmates married!

I just watched my 32-year-old brother get married last month, and that was hard to believe. Now, in the end of September I’ll watch a girl I’ve known since 6th grade get married at St. Francis church in Braintree. As for me, I’m in arrested development, just trying to figure out how to meet girls, go on a date, and enter a relationship. I have a lot of catching up to do.