27 years in After OD

Twenty-seven years ago I was 13, on the cusp of 14. I was smart for my age, interested in things my peers really weren’t, politics being my hyperfocus at the time. More specifically, the Clinton scandal. I read the Starr report the day it came out. I had very strong opinions. I felt that if our President would lie under oath over a blowjob, what else would he easily fail to tell the truth about? I considered myself a republican at the time. I was smart, but very clearly not experienced in life.
So, it was 27 years and one day ago that Bill was acquitted, and 13-year-old me took my rage to the obvious place at the time, yahoo chat rooms. I spent the weekend arguing with strangers and debating back and forth about the whole thing. Then, one line of text flew across the screen and caught my attention: “any other 14-year-old Republicans in the room?” And that moment literally changed my life.
On the other end of the computer was Scott, a 14-year-old who lived in Northern Cali with the same interests as me and a killer sense of humor. We instantly bonded. I found my match, a peer who could hold an interesting conversation, about anything. Though we were each on a different coast, separated by thousands of miles, we formed an incredible friendship, and within a few months we exchanged an “I love you” over the phone.
For the next several years we were incredibly close. I can’t count the number of nights we would instant message until the early morning hours. Chatting about everything and nothing. We had dreams of finally meeting in person one day. We came up with different scenarios of this happening. Maybe he could come visit for Christmas? Maybe he’d come and be my date to senior prom? Maybe we’d meet in Washington D.C. since our shared interest in government brought us together. All only just ideas that never came to fruition.
It was a year into our friendship that we had our first…argument? Problem? I don’t know what to call it. I don’t remember the cause, it was so long ago. What I do remember was that he suggested we stop instant messaging for a while, that we needed a break, but neither wanted to cut the other off completely. So he came up with the idea that we both start a diary on OpenDiary to keep up with one another. I went along with the plan and started my diary under GreenGirl5. That was the year 2000, and while I think he only wrote a few entries, and we ended up back to our old ways of late night messages and daily emails, I spent more than a decade writing there regularly. I made friends both online and real life. And, I met my husband there.
While Scott was my very first love, he’s the reason I found my person. Scott and I were very close throughout my high school years. We never did put a label on what we were, though soul mates had been thrown out there many, many times. After high school, our contact began to dwindle. It’s kind of crazy to think that as technology progressed and contact with someone across the country would become easier, we didn’t really take advantage of that.
It’s been 27 years and while we still consider one another friends, we barely keep in touch these days. We’re both married now. Our contact consists of a “happy birthday” on facebook or the occasional message to check in and say hi. I don’t think we even have one another’s phone number.
Honestly, it makes me sad. I still love him. I believe you can love more than one person. I wonder if I really love him, or the memory of him. I do know I deeply miss him and our friendship. While today marks the “anniversary” of the day we met, I have had him on my mind a lot lately due to the state of our country. I think back to those two teenage kids who thought they knew it all, and how different our views became as adults as we’re both now democrats. I don’t think we could have ever imagined how bad things would become.
What I wouldn’t give for a late-night chat with him about everything taking place now. However, I know that won’t happen. Why? I’m not sure. I don’t know if we haven’t kept in touch much because we’re both too busy, because it probably isn’t appropriate, because maybe he doesn’t hold our friendship in high of a regard as I do. I don’t know. I’m afraid to ask. The truth is, I feel like when I reach out to him anymore, I’m a bother. Like maybe I wasn’t nearly as important in his life as he was/is to me. As I age and get to know myself better, I can see how that’s possible. That’s how my relationships with most people have gone. I’ve gotten close to so many and assumed they’d always be there, and then they disappear, often with no explanation and leaving me wondering what I did to make them go away.
What I do know is that I still love him. I miss him. I am thankful that 27 years ago yahoo chatrooms existed.