"Do you have regrets about the way you lived your life? Because I think I do."

I think I've been watching too many Scrubs reruns lately.

Tonight, for whatever reason, I decided to pull out my old floppy disks and read through letters to friends and family that I wrote almost 8 years ago. That poor decision actually feeds some hilarious content for another post, but in the meantime, I just have to say...

For the most part I have learned from my mistakes. I have grown as a person, as a woman and as a professional. But seriously? The biggest mistake* I ever made was being a schizophrenic bitch to the nicest (comma only) boy who treated me with the level of honesty, decency and respect anyone in a relationship should display to their partner.

He was a law student, interning for the summer. I was a temp at his law firm during college. Despite our love for liberalism, red wine and our coworker's band, it was destined for failure due to the age difference (6 years, which, when I was 18, is a great difference), physical distance for most of the year (he was in NYC, I was in eastern bumfuck southern Virginia), and God knows what else. Or so I thought.

I read some old correspondence to friends where I described his cute letters and phone calls during the school year. I vividly recall a message I got from my Beevis-&-Butthead-loving roommate in college, who I made every effort to tolerate at my own expense, where she nonchalantly mentioned when I walked in the dorm door after a study session one night, that he "called, he said to call back if it wasn't too late" and I literally told her to get the hell out so I could call him back.

It lasted about a year, and ended badly due to me being a total crazy psycho who was convinced all he wanted was to get married because he was "of that age" where he was probably ready to start settling down and HOLY SHIT I was too young to think about that so of course the best resolution was to end - nay, rudely sever - all ties immediately.

I saw him a few years after we "broke up" while I was at a show, and he appeared to be with a fiance while I was with my uber-jealous boyfriend at the time. He didn't see me. Thankfully.

From time to time I wonder where I would be had I stayed with the nice guy. I'd probably be in a suburb near DC, raising a couple kids and working a decent liberal job while he fought the good fight with the court system.

And I try to convince myself that things happen for a reason, and that I wouldn't have found San Francisco and all the magic and friends and food that it offers, had I stayed on the East Coast. And I try to convince myself that this was all meant to be, and I'm doing what I need to be doing.

But I'm a child of the "choose your own adventure" era. I constantly wonder what's behind Door #2. I hope his family is doing well, wherever he and his inevitably beautiful and successful wife and children are.

And I curse the Internet for making me search his name these past 10 minutes.

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* That's the biggest mistake tonight. Ask me tomorrow, you'd probably get a different answer.