Day 280: Moving On

I'm not the kind of person who holds onto grudges or teenage trivial tribulations, or stupid petty pointless unimportant non-existant competitions with people from my past, but maybe today this was proven incorrect...

I was talking to my friend Cindy today online while I had time to kill during prep break, and she sent me a file that flooded me with memories from my teenage days. It was a scanned image from Thunder Bay's local newspaper of a photo and short congratulatory message dedicated to a girl named Jamie Boulter, a girl that I once dated back in high school.

Or I should now call her Dr. Jamie whatever-her-new-last-name-is. She has just been awarded her Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine and has also married since I last saw her back in 1996. Sadly, I have to admit, that reading and seeing this filled me with feelings of jealousy, envy, and contempt. Well okay maybe not *that* strong (stop being melodramatic Scotty!) but more just feeling like I've been one-upped and have lost the competition. Only what's sad is that the competition doesn't exist except for in my own warped little head.

Jamie and I were always very competitive, even while dating. We were both quite smart in school, and competed not only in academics but even just with stupid stuff all the time. It was mostly all in jest and fun but there was definitely a serious undertone to it as well. And you know how it is when you break up with someone - you want to be the first to find a new beau, the first to move on into some new amazing fabulous life to show off, the first to do, well, everthing...

And now that Miss Jamie has gone and gotten herself married and now has a freakin' PhD, I feel like I've got some serious ground to gain in this sad competition (one that again I'm sure she's long since forgotten, but this again illustrates Scotty's competitive nature in just about anything.)

I guess I also feel a bit dissed by her too. I knew when she got married a few years ago (again courtesy of my always-in-the-know pal Cindy) and had decided to send her a congratulations card to her parents. I included a little letter about what I had been up since high school and hoped that she was doing well and that she'd send me an email saying hey and telling me what she was up to (besides the obvious new marital status thing.) Well all I got back in the mail (and not even to Vancouver but to my parents in Thunder Bay) was a tiny little thank you card saying "Thank you for your card and warm wishes" - and that was it!!! I totally felt snubbed! And now that I read this in the paper she's gone and beaten me again - first in the war of romantics, and now the war of academics. Fuck!

Oh Scotty, you can be so sad and pathetic sometimes...

Why should I even care about all of this nonsense that I've unnecessarily created for myself? This is all about a girl that I dated back when I was freakin' seventeen years old - I'm 26 now! I haven't even seen her in almost a decade and yet for some stupid reason I still feel compelled to "beat her." I mean I don't even date girls any more, for Christ's sake! Why is this getting under my skin?

And it's not like I have something to be embarrassed to be about! I may not have a partner of my own, but I did go to a kick-ass university after high school, got to live in a truly amazing city, and now travel around overseas on the adventure of a lifetime. My life is amazing and I truly live my dreams out everyday. Why do I still feel like I don't measure up? It's almost like I feel that I need to become some giant movie star in Asia or something and become super huge famous and then she finds out about my stratosphere-level fame and fortune by seeing my perfect picture on the cover of Rolling Stone, People, and GQ all in the same week while shopping at the Walgreens in Whereverville, America that she now lives in.

Argh! I'm so lame! I'm frustrated by these feelings of insecurity. Why do I still feel the need to "win", when the only person racing is me? Why can't I just move on? It's not like these emotions dictate and control me everyday, but they lay dormant beneath the surface for years at a time before rearing their ugly head again. They really do need to just go away, and in a healthy way rather than feeling falsely victorious on some non-existent future date.

Do I need therapy? Be honest...