A Girl...

Old Friends, New Friends

In further avoidance of the wedding recap, allow me to tell you a heartwarming story about the power of blogs to close intimidating gaps of space and time and bring people (back) together.

About a month ago I was indulging in my nostalgiaholicism™ and Googling the names of some old friends when, BAM, here is a blog belonging to the wife (he has a wife!) of my very first boyfriend (if one can be said to have a boyfriend at age six). I haven't seen him since ninth grade, and I think the only thing I ever heard about him was that he went to Yale (natch), but now he is on my computer screen, in stories, in comments, in photos, and today, in a video clip "dancing" to Modest Mouse (mostly just flinging his arms around like one of those old Wet Willy sprinklers (remember those? with the water tubes that would wiggle out of control? I can't find them on the internet anywhere!)).

I found the site a while ago and had a good time reading through the archives, but it wasn't until yesterday, when I realized that he (and his wife!) are still in touch with my carpool buddy from age 9 to 15 (and his wife!), who I also haven't seen in about fourteen years, that I broke down and decided to email Sarah, the author of the blog. (It turns out these guys are also in touch with Suzie, a girl I was on the high school dance company with, and I can't figure out for the life of me how they know her except that when Mormons leave Utah they have a way of finding other Mormons.)

In emailing Sarah I was a little nervous about opening communication--some women are extremely protective of women who knew their husbands in the past and I didn't want to offend--but mostly I was just afraid that I'd say, "I remember your husband! Does he remember me?" and the response would be "He thinks he can recall your name, maybe a little. You're the brunette with the wonky eye, right?" at which point I'd be crushed (crushed!) because I'm one of those people who remembers everyone about everyone and holds the memories of my childhood extraordinarily close to my heart. How depressing it would be if this guy, who I once thought was the dreamiest kindergartener in the whole school, and the cleverest preteen in the whole valley, didn't have a clue who I was.

So I emailed Sarah (who is smart and talented and GORGEOUS) and she remarked at how crazy it is that I emailed her because not three days before she was telling J he was the fastest reader she's ever known and he said, "Yes, I'm fast, but there was only one person who was always a faster reader and faster test-taker than me. Leah." Not only am I remembered, but I'm remembered in detail! Flattering detail, no less!

Sarah forwarded my email to J, and I just heard back from him, in an email with the subject line "Unexpected, but prophesied." He (affectionately) called me his arch-rival, said I was the Anne Shirley to his Gilbert Blythe. And I'll be damned if that didn't make the sun shine brighter right then, because (1) I love a guy who knows Anne of Green Gables and (2) he's totally right, minus the freckles and hairpulling and the fact that we didn't eventually end up together but on opposite sides of the country (he lives in New Jersey with his red-headed wife!).

I just love that I've reconnected with someone like this after so many years. And I'm so happy to see that he's happy, and to be able to tell him that I'm happy too. Making new friends through blogging is still awesome, but it's old hat for me now, having already spent so many years getting to know and love so many of you. But this--finding someone I knew and loved way back in the wayback times, back when I still had my baby teeth--is a different kind of wonderful, and I just had to share it because I know you'll understand.

(Yes, I realize that Facebook is just made for this sort of thing, and no, I do not have a Facebook account and probably never will. I once set up a fake Myspace account for the sole purpose of spying on people, but that kind of backfired when the Myspace people invented a plugin that basically searches through account members' email address books and matches entries up with Myspace registrees, so now everyone who has my email also knows I've set up a fake Myspace page with a fake name for the sole purpose of spying on them. Oops.)