It’s been so long since I’ve been through the holiday season “single”, I’d forgotten that the local hard-core alcoholics scene does not give a flying fuck what day it is. The bar will probably be open anyway. So it was Christmas Eve, and our friendly bartender made sure we were aware, so it would be Christmas proper. The crowd was barely thinned, but P__ and I grabbed two of the last remaining stools and hunkered down. It was only meant to be a (that’s one) beer, but the bartender served up shots of something festive and delicious on the house, and that quickly became two.
About an hour later, N__ walked in. I hadn’t seen her since the week I moved back to town to get married eight years ago, and she hadn’t seemed especially excited to see me. As I recall, she didn’t usually get much excited about anything, so probably nothing personal. This time her eyes lit up, and she came right over to say hello. I asked if she was still living in town; no, visiting for the holidays. Where from? L.A. I hate L.A., but it’s not really fair because I’ve only been through it once, so the only thing I experienced was the traffic–not its best side from what I understand. What’re you doing there? I’m a lawyer.
Damn.
Now, I’ve always had a nose for quality. The girls I was into in high-school almost always turned out to be the hottest, most successful twenty-somethings. If I could pick stocks as well, I’d be a lot richer. N__ wasn’t what I’d call “driven” at the time we met. She waited tables and worked at the local indie theater best I can recall. We shared a snarky, misanthropic slant that was only defensible via its expression through appreciation of art and literature. Ten years later, she’s a west-coast lawyer working on some multinational human-rights case.
“You know P__, right?” P__ is a local artist with some serious street cred, and he was pretty well known in the area even back when N__ and I were dating.
She didn’t.
Her boyfriend (?) I recognized from his days as the manager of a local coffee-shop. I chatted him up for a bit–turns out he’s now a professor of Psychology. I didn’t know him, but I wouldn’t have given either of them the kind of credit that they’d go turn themselves into successful professionals. It gives me a lot of hope though. I’ve been thinking lately that the most admirable trait of any human being is the ability to change their mind–to recognize that something is wrong, not with the world, but with themselves and to go and fix it. Good on ya, you guys. I could use the role models right now.