Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
After reading some newspapers this last weekend I've been feeling sad and on Tuesday to distract myself I did a websearch for more information about my best friend from elementary school who was my second D&D DM (his eldest brother was my first DM) who I met back in the ’70’s, who’s dead now, I saw a page memorializing him, he had beautiful second wife and kids whom I never met (I was at his wedding with his first wife, who later cheated on him and they divorced) he became a scientist (he seemed far more imaginative than me in our youth and I guess was smarter as well), moved to Santa Cruz, and died of cancer not too long ago.

I looked up another friend from the same times who who’s mom became a junkie when we were teenagers and he moved into my Mom’s house so I moved into my Dad’s house because it was too crowded, when he turned 18 he joined the Marines, and I was a little glad to see him get out of town, but I couldn’t find any trace of him on-line so his fate remains unknown to me.

And then I made a mistake that kept me from sleeping Tuesday night/Wednesday morning: I looked up the girl that came with me to my best friends wedding when I think I was 21 or 22 and she was 18 or 19, but we met when we were both still teenagers, and I fell for her hard (as only teenagers can) we dated a bit, in time she lost interest in me romantically (as most women do their men, but luckily for us men older women will resign themselves to staying with us sometimes) and I never fell as hard for another girl of women again including my beautiful wife who I met when I was 23 and have been with since I was 24.

For around the second to last sort of “date” I had with the girl I’ll call “K” (when we were at the “just being friends” stage) she called me to invite me to a house party concert, and then when I called her back she was very angry with me because I called her by her childhood name, and not the new name she had chosen for herself of and I mostly decided then that it would be better to mostly curtail the friendship, though I saw her a few times afterwards, once when I was on a motorcycle that I was proud of and I saw her and said hello, once some years latet on an actual dinner for the two of us at a fancy restaurant (which we never did when we were actually boyfriend and girlfriend, mostly we just rode on my motorscooter) when she indulged my whim to try to LARP an adult “date” despite usually being too poor for such things, and the last time was at a bookstore that I was at with my future wife for a reading she wanted to attend, and I got in line to buy a book the cashier said my name (twice!) until I realized that the cashier was “K”, who said to me: “I thought you were moving to Seattle” and I replied: “I was there for months, but it was just too dark”, and I haven’t spoken to her again for decades, and I assumed that she moved out of town like most of the friends I had in my youth.

Well…

… “K” did go to college out of town, but she came back and has been teaching at a nearby university (the University!) for many years, and the reason she was easier to find out about on-line than my other old friends was she’s had five books published and a lot of articles on-line (some at websites and publications that I’ve read sometimes making me feel like a dunce that I never noticed her by-line.

In many way my wife reminded me of “K” when we met, as my future wife was a student at the University law school, had ambitions to be a musician and a writer, had won some poetry competitions, was more educated than me and had impressive books – and after she met me she dropped out of school, never got published, the drummer of our “band” left, and my wife stayed in an apartment with me that had a leaking roof for 17 years, and for a year with me from jobsite to jobsite sleeping in a truck with a camper, we buried one son who didn’t live a year, had two other sons, and finally bought a house in 2011 when we were both past 40 years old.

“K” instead became an academic, met and married a musician/composer when she was in her 30's, became a prolific writer (on banned topics, so don't expect a further hint of who), had no children, but has fame – yes it had been a long night and morning of reading!

Reading first my old best friend’s accomplishments, and then my old girlfriend’s accomplishments, has made me feel pretty insignificant, but more than that it was like watching an It's a Wonderful Life-ish vision, but with the moral reversed as it’s made me feel that my wife could’ve done so much more without me, because I really did have a “type”: long dark hair, middle-class background, and my educational.and intellectual superior, and yes future Mrs. 2D8HP reminded me of “K”, and given what “K” accomplished and Mrs 2D8HP once had ambitions to, I’m feeling like I've been a bad influence and an anchor on my wife right now, and given our age and parental duties it's too late to fix that, though maybe it's just a mood of mine because of a lack of vitamins, or that I'm running out of room and places to hide all the books I buy (which is my main hobby) as I was already despondent regarding news from places that I usually regard as "There be Dragons", in any case - I'm feelin' down.
You had kids and K didn't? You're ahead.