I remember meeting him in 1999. Smashing Pumpkins, Aerosmith, Emily… And before you knew it we were friends.

How many people do you meet in this world that have a cherry red jeep that could splash through puddles in a manner that made me giggle like nothing else (at least like nothing else before I discovered sex alcohol and weed)? I watched him love my friend and she him, as much as teenagers are meant to love each other. Maybe the pain was exquisite, maybe it was excruciating, maybe it escaped any adjective humans have managed to create (unlikely).

The drama was like no other. Too many painkillers used to treat a pain that could not compete with the gel-caps being swallowed, much less the reality of the post-high school world. An unsuspecting victim completing a love triangle that he didn’t know he was becoming involved in and by the time he did, he no longer cared.

Sex and misunderstandings, misunderstandings and sex divided us more effectively than Monica did Hillary and Bill. (How simple life was back then! To be able to say, “if he cheats, he’s out, no questions asked,” completely unaware that you might end up being the clandestine other woman in some dark corner years later.)

Ethics and morals seemed easier than; do this, don’t do that. Suddenly, youth ends and reality begins and there’s the truth. Nothing is black and white. The entire world exists in shades of grey.

Reflecting upon that version of me, I am not sure that anyone could have convinced me my shades of grey would vary from smoky to pearly in a single minute. Would anyone from that part of my life have been capable of divining the degree of change in me? Possibly, but the direction... I think about me then and me now and me in the middle.

So many different places people dishes smells textures buildings alcohols beaches have passed through the moments of my life, marking me in one way or another, rendering it impossible for me to return to my previous self.

In some moments, the degree of change has been less than a single breath. In others, I managed to leap through centuries of knowledge in a single second (seriously, I may not be the one you want to doubt when it comes to claims such as these.).

So, with a simple click of my mouse, I let him back into my life. Does he think he knows me? I know I don’t know him. His face is similar and his name is the same, but who of us escapes change?