This is Paco. Or that is his nickname, I won't post his real name, because I don't know how he'd feel about being featured on the blog of someone he hasn't seen in decades. This is a dude from my back in the day. When I was in my teens, regardless of the one I was with, this was who I was pondering. When I was old enough to be kissed, even by Sound of Music standards, he finally noticed me. My senior prom: he was my date.
Here he is the way he looked the last time I saw him in person:
It was shortly before nour lives that we were so sure would rejoin after college went in separate ways forever. I thought at the time, and I have always believed that he was an important chapter of my life. And yet. And yet I only have two photos of him in my thousands. It got me thinking about how careless I was with my memories when I was a teen. I had so many amazing experiences from the ages of 14-19 and I have only a handful of photos, most of which don't document what I was up to.
I think it was because nobody was supposed to move on, our lives werent' supposed to head in different directions, so why worry that I didn't have many photos? I'd just get them from someone else in the gang if I needed them later, right?
And now they are all gone on to their own lives. I don't keep up with any of them and these few photos are all I have of a time of my life that was filled with change and adventure.
But back to Paco. Last time we talked via email he had no children, and I had two. He had just accepted his first major teaching position and I had just purchased a home with Scott. Now we both apparently have sons, he's finished the job he'd just gotten and moved on to Chicago, back in the center of the country for the first time in decades. We've sold our house and the job I had is long over. I'm not sure if he'll email me back or not, of course I know nothing of what he is like as an adult and whether these random connections out of nowhere from old friends will amuse him or annoy him.
A fun advantage of the internet though, to be able to touch base from time to time with the past, especially for people like me who consider our history important now, even though we weren't good guardians of it back then.
Ain't that the truth. Back in the day, I wasn't worried about photos or anything. It's also just something my mom did not do. Hope ya hear from Paco.
Posted by: Leah Crowe | March 29, 2008 at 07:28 PM