Fish Sticks and Green Jello

Last week I was going through all my old emails and I came across one from a really old friend named Ben Davis. I hadn't heard from him in awhile and his email address was no longer valid. I had tried to email him once before and it had been returned. Ben was a really good friend of mine back in 1995-97 roughly. We used to collect action figures together and hang out together all the time. I loved Ben and I miss his friendship a lot. He even came to my college graduation. Around the summer of '97 I started going out with this guy in Santa Cruz and stopped hanging out with Ben so much.

At one point, I remember this day clearly, we all went to Betty's Ocean View Diner for breakfast. I recall he said something to me that really irritated me and I dumped my juice on his breakfast plate. He got really upset by that, as well he should, and I was very unapologetic. Suffice to say that was the beginning of the end of our friendship. I've always regretted that day and it took me two years after that to really figure out some things about myself. Those things were what alienated an ex of mine and alienated Ben as well. I don't really want to go into what the root cause was or what changed but let's just say things got A LOT better.

Anyway, last Tuesday I was watching last Friday's 20/20 on my UltimateTV box. Now I never watch 20/20 but for some lame reason I wanted to see the Posh Spice/David Beckham interview. So I sat through the whole show because I was too lazy to turn it off after the interview. At the end of the show there was a preview for next week (this friday's) show. It was about a woman who had been searching for the son she'd given up at birth when she was very young. Now this woman lives in Florida and somehow the daughter out in California just happened to meet her long lost brother via a mutual friend 34 years later. What are the chances?? So the camera pans to the son and goshdarnit if it isn't Ben! I was totally freaked out. I had to write an email to my friend Xochi immediately who filled me in on what he knew. What an amazing story! It was great to see Ben too. I was really happy for him and it made me think again about contacting him. Maybe I'll drop him an email and see how life is. And maybe one day he might read this and drop me an email. You never know...