Brighton Lights: Lynn Ruth Miller

Remember me?

It happens every day. You open Facebook and find some forgotten person from long ago. My friend Barry re-discovered Gloria, his high school sweetheart there. They’d both been widowed the year before, and … well, you know the rest. They are now madly in love, spending hot and heavy weekends together reminiscing about that lousy math teacher who drove everyone crazy and the big mistake they made marrying someone else first.

I have not been so lucky. The people who re-connect with me on Facebook are all part of a nightmare I prefer to erase. They remind me that they knew me when I wore braces on my teeth and wandered through life with my head in a cloud, my feet encased in orthopedic oxfords.

I do not want to relive a time when I was ruled by parents, teachers and consensus. Those days are past.

I can only suspect that the ones who contact me are so senile they do not remember anything more than my name. There could be no other reason. I was not the hottest item on the block in days gone by. Nonetheless, I fell in love with the unattainable on a regular basis and went to great lengths to let my targets know I was available. When I look back on all of them now, I realize how desperate I was.

Did I really want that short, pimply guy in my history class? And why did my heart flutter at the sight of a boy in uniform? Didn’t I realize that clothes cannot transform a boy into a man?

hy did my heart flutter at the sight of a boy in uniform?

Not long ago, I got a friend request from Donny Okun who fancied me when I was nineteen; still hopeful. He was a sailor then who wore his bell-bottom trousers tight enough that I could see clearly what he had to offer. He sent me bouquets of roses every week for a month and then asked me to go with him to Canada for a night on the town. OMG! I was crossing the border with an honest-to-god sailor, and you know what they say about sailors! I threw caution to the wind and wore my most décolleté dress so he could see my equipment as clearly as I could see his. We got in the car, I lit a cigarette, and tossed the match out the window.

However, the window was closed and the flaming match ricocheted into my cleavage. As both of us burrowed into my dress to keep me from bursting into flames, I realized all too clearly that I needed more than a pair of tight trousers to commit. And now, this guy wants us to be friends? I hit delete. It was one of the wisest decisions I have ever made.

“Look back and smile on perils past.” – Walter Scott