Yeah, that was me...

So, David Haines. I haven't seen you in about eleven or twelve years, and there you were across from me at Starbucks. I was inside with the fiance, and you were outside having a smoke (I thought you were planning on being a doctor, tsk-tsk). We were about three or four feet apart, though separated by glass. I don't blame you for not reconizing me, though. I'm about 75 lbs heavier than I was in high school, an inch or two taller, I have a beard now, and my hair is about a foot longer. Even some of my old BYU friends don't recognize me now. I'm sorry I didn't jump up, run outside and say hello to you, I wanted to finish my beverage first. Before I could, you got up and walked away, then got into your BMW 5 series and drove off. Of course I thought about how we used to hang in high school, and some of the people we used to run with, like Jeff, and Paul, and John... and things that happened, all the typical high school drama. It seemed important then, I guess.

All I remember now is how prideful and smart we all thought we were, and how smart we really weren't. I guess for me half of it was faking it. I acted like I was confident, even cocky, and never showed that I was afraid of being a loser. I'd have rather been called an arrogant jerk than a loser any day. I'd have rather been thought to be promiscuous than thought to be undesirable. So much time wasted in worrying about what you thought, Dave, or what others though about me. So much time saying or pretending that I didn't, when the truth was quite different. I'm sure I wasn't a very good actor then. I'm even worse now. I think that might be why I decided to give the whole authenticity thing a try.

Did you conquer the world? Did any of us? We all thought we were such hot shit because we were in IB, or had school come easy to us, or could read Thoreau and understand it before we were old enough to get drafted. I already knew I was going to be out of town for my 10th year high school reunion that was taking place in two days, but this little bit of karma was totally unexpected. I'm kind of sorry I didn't jump up and go say hi or something... but after you'd left I realized... after a few years of saying I didn't care about what happened in high school, and saying that none of it mattered... somehow it became so. I haven't thought about high school in a long time. After you left, I turned to my fiance and said, "I'll have to tell you about high school and my friends sometime..."

Then again, maybe I won't.