Selling short

And suddenly I'm on a roll? After more than a month of absence I'm churning out another post so soon? No, this isn't boredom. I got inspired all of a sudden by a friend's facebook status... and it wasn't even about porn.

*****

I went to an elite university for college. By elite, I mean that it's one of those schools where almost everyone wants to get in but only a select few manage to squeeze through. So imagine what an ego boost it was for me to have been one of the luckier ones. I must be a goddam genius! Or maybe I was awfully lucky during the entrance exams, considering that it was multiple choice and I happened to have my lucky marker at the ready. At any rate, that was probably the last time I ever thought of myself as being gifted with a superior intellect. It all went downhill, really really downhill, like a cliff, from thereon.

Anyway, let's fast forward to today. I open facebook looking for hot girls (which is one good reason to have a facebook account, by the way) when I chanced upon my first college crush.

Her status: "Early morning first day of school. Cold and still dark out. Making pancakes for breakfast & ******'s baon. Welcome to my world."

To the untrained eye, it sounds like a rant (hmm, untrained ear might have been more accurate - this is confusing for me). She sounds miserable and likely to sear her face down on the hot flat pan and drown herself in maple syrup. A desperate housewife about to explode. But I assure you, this is not the case.

To explain, let's go back to the good old college freshman years, when I was invincible and mighty and listened to grunge music because it was the "in" thing. There was this girl, nerdy-like, a bit on the plain side for the rest of the guys, but I was hooked. It was one of those weird circumstances where you spent the whole time in class wondering what she would in all probability order on our first date. That date would never happen. It was a potent combination of me being extremely insecure around the opposite sex and her being, well, awesome.

But all was not lost for the shy, bumbling 17-year old me. Technology gave me an opportunity to work around my bashfulness. What I could not say to her face, I was able to communicate through the wonder that is the telephone. I'd call her on weekends, and we'd talk. Nothing heavy, of course, mostly light chit-chat that never really headed anywhere. Kinda like this blog.

That went on for a year, but midway through I realized that there was little chance that it would progress to an actual date. The reason I forget, it was a long time ago, but there wasn't any bitterness at all. I can't recall most of what we talked about, but one particular conversation struck me that I have never forgotten it until this very day.

It was a sunny afternoon, I was lying on my back on the floor while on the phone with her. Hi's and Hello's worked their way into the usual light chatter. And then she let out a bomb: "Aren't you worried that you're failing Math?"

Curiously, at that particular point in time I didn't realize that I was failing Algebra and Trigonometry. I didn't mind my test scores, though I knew they were low. What a total bitch!

"Huh? Who said I was failing?"
"I saw your test scores. You haven't passed a single exam yet."
"Well, they're pretty close to passing anyway. I can still make up for it in the finals."
"You sure?" Okay, this bitch was getting on my nerves now.
"Of course I'm sure."
"Okay. I just don't get how you're still complacent. I can't stand the feeling of me getting low grades."

So she's not a bitch. She's the sweetest little thing in the universe as far as I was concerned! So she knows my scores, and notices how calm and collected I am despite of it. (In reality though, I was too dumb to notice that I was failing)

"Don't worry. I'm not."
"What do you think you'll be after we graduate?" How sweet of her to assume I would actually graduate! Isn't she a dear?
"I dunno, I haven't thought about it yet." What a fucking loser. "And you, what do you want to be when you graduate?"
"I want to have a family. Take care of my kids, my husband. Be a housewife."
"A housewife? Aren't you going to work?"
"I will, for a few years."
"Wait, aren't you selling yourself short here? I mean, you're at the top of our class!"
"No I'm not. I just study harder that the others."
"That's part of the point. Why work hard when..."
"When?" She cut me off... thank goodness.
"I mean, you could be anything you want to be, and you're going to quit one day to stay at home?"
"I don't know, I can't really picture myself not being at home. I love being part of a family. Someday, I want to have my own as well."
"You could do that and have a career, you know."
"I don't think I can."

That thought kept bugging me for a time. It was like knowing Einstein not coming up with the Theory of Relativity because he wanted to play catch with his dog all day. Or Stan Lee thinking up all these crazy superheroes and not writing comic books to do his laundry, or Jack Kennedy not boinking Marilyn Monroe because he had to sign some peace treaty or something that would end the cold war. Wasn't it Uncle Ben who said "With great power comes great responsibility"? Here was someone who consciously excelled in an elite university that most people only dream of attending, and she wants to sell herself short someday.

Me? No one would probably give a rat's ass. At 17, I still had trouble adding fractions. But this girl, top of her class, cute as hell, and able to make butterflies suddenly appear in my stupid teenage stomach, wanted to make pancakes for breakfast and iron her husband's slacks on weekends?

Life went on after that conversation. She graduated with honors, I took my sweet time and needed 4 more years to fulfill her prophecy. I sort of lost track of her amid all the parties, the booze and the hangovers. Just recently I got a chance to check up on her through facebook. She's got her own family now, still working but doting on her little ones.

She rarely posts anything on her facebook status, but this one that I chanced upon made me smile. She made it! It also made me realize that to become 'something', you've got to know what you really want out of yourself first. I guess I'll have to keep working on that. Hopefully someday, I'll also be able to sell myself short.