This morning, I had to open up my office and open the switchboard as our receptionist was out sick and no one else was around. I had to sit at the front desk for a while, make coffee (which I don’t drink, so who knows if it was even good?) and answer the phone. All of this is outside the realm of my normal duties, but when someone’s sick, we all pitch in and change things up to cover the situation.
I’m answering the madly ringing phone, accidentally hanging up on some of Asheville’s most important people repeatedly, when someone appears at the desk… when I look up, I’m startled to see Mike! And I’m giddy and frazzled all at once, trying to do a job that’s not mine while trying to write down my contact info for Mike. If I’d been of clear mind, I would’ve let the phone ring and given him a hug.
Travel back in time with me…let’s go all the way back to high school, more than 15 years ago…I was hott back then, too, of course. I was a lovely goth/punk/freak girl, a member of a posse of weirdos in my school. We were a large but closeknit group of guys and girls, freshmen through seniors…Sharon, Chris, Sean, Adam, Robin, Sherry, Christina, Mark, Scott, just to name a few of the freaks, there were so many more. We were cool.
And in our clique were the Mikes: Mike and Mikey. I don’t remember how we decided which one was going to be Mikey, but they both came to our social group as Mike.
Just a smidgen younger than I, the Mikes were wonderfully fun, and they absolutely adored me. Blue-eyed Mikey offered to build a shrine to me. Mike worked with me for a while at the mall, cutting up with me to a ridiculous extent in the walk-in freezer. If my phone was ringing, odds were pretty good that it was one of the Mikes on the other end.
I adored them both in return, but I couldn’t let them know that! If I had “chosen” one over the other, it would’ve ripped our social group to shreds. I loved Mikey for his sweet spirit underneath a rough exterior and Mike for his quiet sarcasm. In appropriate high school behavior, I had to give them both equal amounts of hell and abuse their kindness.
High school was over in a blink even though at times it felt like it would last forever, and I lost track of most of my social circle. Email didn’t exist for us then or instant messaging or blogging or cell phones, all the things that can keep us in touch so easily now. I lost touch with both of the Mikes, and life went on…college, weddings, minime, more college, years disappeared.
And then that brings us to today, a chance meeting at the front desk of my office. What did I write down for Mike? Hopefully my phone number in full or my whole email address, I don’t even know for sure. No matter, I am grateful for the nostalgia that’s rippled through my thoughts today, so grateful to think of people and places that I hadn’t recalled in ages.
I’d give almost anything to have our group all back together again in one place, but I’ll settle for random meetings as life rolls on…