Karma - or "revenge is best served cold"....

M. was my high-school crush. It's fair to say he was my "first love" - and even more accuratly he was not the love of my life as much later in life I realised.

M. was, to me, the coolest thing on the planet! Wow, among all those rude, scrubby 16 year old boys, he was tall in 17s, broad shoulders and leather jacket, quiet and controlled, and also the only guy that actually worked in group projects and therefore got half-a-decent grade - The class' "teacher's pet" and the cool guy, what a team!

Being the ultimately cool guy M. had, of course, a girlfriend - none than other, the principal's daughter. Untouchable and also the prettiest girl in school. Me being the fat, long often greasy hair girl, ad eternum in ALL-STARS snickers, jeans and baggy sweatshirts, our team was safe: we both worked well together, we spent countless hours on the phone, in that "pre-internet" online work system, quizzing eachother for the history test, discussing the biology paper for homework, or just chatting.

That went until his girlfriend broke up with him.
"Teenage crisis" finally got to the younger girlfriend that cut short her long wavy hair, replaced her spotless Benetton clothes for heavy metal shirts, black jeans, reinforced Doc Martins and took up matching boyfriend.

The Cool Guy's fat side kick was no longer "cool" to be seen with. And so I was bluntly avoided on the courtyard and in class - though we still talked a lot on the phone: even more so now his heart was "broken".

"Miraculous are the healing powers of the young" and soon enough he was back into dating this one and that - and came back to his "secret confidant" with details of his conquests: how pretty, how slender and lean and elegant these girls are. Untill he finally settled for a new one: a professional model.

It was my heart's time to feel broken. "If he likes me, I'll put myself on a starving diet! I'll do extra exercise!" and of course people always like you for what you are, not what you could be.

College came and we lost track of eachother. A couple years down the road I realised I didn't like 17 year old boys and that's what I remembered of him. I realised I loved myself despite. And I did go on a diet - for myself. Two years later, though I never became "model material" I had to change my entire wardrobe because I was wearing 4 sizes smaller.

Life went on, college was finished, another love and another broken heart, other passions....
I cut my air short, and I am pretty irrecognisable.

And now Karma brought him to me again.
The other day I was walking back to work, feeling not at my best and he walks by me. He looked me straight in the face but didn't recognise me. 11 years.... That can do a lot to a person.

I didn't say a thing but...
He wasn't as tall as I remembered him. I must have grown more than him. His pouty sexy lips now look like a beak in is now round chubby face, all of him a log squizzed into his suit, his laptop on a backpack crunching him a bit more. I wonder if the model is till with him.

How the mighty have fallen. For someone who dissed me for not looking like a beauty icon, despite my current overweight, the tired eyes, the opaque skin, the worries that mark a face ... Hey, M. - you look like an average bloke that doesn't exercise!

Then I felt ashamed of myself. After all I was applying the same criteria to him that he applied to me, in a long forgotten time... How mean!
But I realised - now that I am feeling old, and ugly and baggy and that I have accomplished nothing - It made my day! >;-)

I hope the Karma doesn't come back to me now......:"> Again....