Double the Pleasure

I was speculating with a friend last night about meeting up with an old boyfriend. Note I did not say fantasizing. I hate to admit I’m this shallow, but, I said, if an old boyfriend connected with me on the internet, and invited me for coffee, my response would likely be somewhere in the realm of, “I’m free the second week of March. In 2009.” Because, of course, that would give me time to lose fifty pounds and get my thermage treatment.

Not that I get thermage treatments. Not that I even know what one is, but I saw a sign about it at the dermatologist’s last week. Where I’d gone for an ingrown neck hair. Don’t you hate that?

But, I said to my friend, if he absolutely insisted on a meeting within this lifetime, then I’d be forced to say, “Here’s how you recognize me...”
“But,” my friend interrupted. “Wouldn’t he recognize you? You were married to him for four years.”
“In my twenties,” I replied. “Trust me.”
In my twenties. When I thought I was fat. Fat. I was one-hundred-twenty pounds or, taken in today’s context, about the size of my left thigh. Don’t you hate that?

So, she said, “Continue.”
“Here’s what I’d say. I’d say, ‘Just remember me as I was at twenty-five...’”
I waited for her laughter to subside. She waved a hand. “Sorry. Continue.”
“I’d say, ‘Just remember me as I was at twenty-five. Then multiply me by two.’”

Makes sense. I’m double the chin folds, double the bra size, double the hair length (to hide the chin folds), double the wrinkles, double (make that double-double-double) the gray hair, and double the weight. (Okay, that last is an exaggerration. Even here, amongst friends, I don’t want you picturing me the size of a, well, doublewide, when I’m only half the size of a fifth-wheel.)

“You forgot something,” my friend said.
And, just as I was turning over in my mind the true meaning of the word friend, she said, “You’re double the wisdom.”

She’s right. There’s a reason why each boyfriend from my past became an old boyfriend, and each experience left me a little older, maybe a little sadder for a while, but definitely a whole lot wiser...

Don’t you love that?