Revenge Is Best Served With An Upgrade

So my girlfriend and I were talking about this the other day after I came across a picture of one my ex-boyfriends -- a guy I hadn't seen in over eight years. He wasn't a bad guy. I mean, he didn't cheat on me or anything. But he wasn't exactly the kind of boyfriend you brag about to your friends. More like the kind of guy you always find yourself making excuses for. That is until there just aren't any more excuses to give. He'd sometimes goes days without calling me -- of course, he tried but for some reason he couldn't get through on my line. Or, he'd take me to a party at one of his friend's houses, usually someone I didn't know very well, and end up leaving me to fend for myself while he was yucking it up with the guys. Of course, he wanted to give me a chance to mingle and meet new people. And when we finally did break up, it took me a good year and half to get over him, trying to figure out why we weren't meant to be when everything in my my mind said we were.

He'd call every so often to tell me he missed me or was thinking about me. And as luck would have it, those calls usually came within days of me deciding to get over it, once and for all. But then I met my husband, and from the start, things were just different. He was attentive and thoughtful; protective and personal. He'd brag to his friends that I was his "Pepperdine" girl because he was proud to have me. He'd drive over an hour to come see me with a broken driver-side window, in the rain. Talk about night and day.

And then one day, after we'd been dating for a few months, I got another one of those calls from my ex. He'd been "trying to reach me for four months" but as luck would have it, he was only able to get through the week of his company Christmas party -- one that he wanted me to go to with him, out of town, on my own dime. Imagine his shock when I told him I had a boyfriend. But it didn't end there.

Four years later when he found out I was getting married, my mom saw him at a community function and he lamented to her, "So, my girl's getting married, huh?" To which she quipped, "she hasn't been your girl for a long time now." And now four years after that, our lives couldn't be more different. Our mothers are still pretty good friends, so I get the update every so often. He's not married, not even dating anyone...and hasn't in a really long time. He's finally finishing up school after rebelling against it for so long and is starting to find his footing as an artist. Good for him! He really is talented.

But I had realized that I wasted far too much time trying to make him love me the way I loved him. And after I was over it, I mean really over it, I remember telling my best friend that he was a good guy, he just was never my guy.

And it just so happens that I occasionally stay in touch with one of his siblings, which is how the picture emerged. And let's just say that he doesn't look at all how I remember him, which made me think about how far I've come in the last eight years and how much my life has improved since that time.

And that got me thinking -- what if revenge wasn't about getting even after all. What if the best revenge was about getting better?

Is 'Stupid' a Prerequisite?

What if life was like college, with courses and majors and professors and yes, prerequisites? Are there certain classes (or lessons) you have to pass before you're qualified to start on a major? Take desperate for example. You know that feeling you get after you just graduated, you're sending out resumes like crazy, no one's calling back, the first student loan payment is coming due soon, and still...nothing. You're desperate for a job and you secretly vow to take the first thing that comes along. That's Desperation 1o1. You go through that and maybe you do end up taking that job, only to have it turn into a near miserable experience. Then you make another vow to never do that again. It's an experience that's helped shape you, and in some way, qualified you to move on because you passed the course, even if just barely. But a passing grade is a passing grade. And now you know that no matter how desperate you may feel, waiting for the right position is always the better way to go.

I think Stupid is one of those pre-reqs. We've all been there -- when you took back the boyfriend (or girlfriend) that cheated on you and humiliated you, only to later ask, "How could I have been so stupid?". Or, the time you let him borrow your credit card to rent a car, only to have him never call you again and return the car over a month later -- all charged to you. Then there's time you were stood up...on New Year's...and instead of calling it quits immediately, you accepted the lame excuse he gave, kept seeing him, and yes, he ended up doing it again, only this time he left you hanging on a trip to Santa Barbara that you freed up your entire weekend to attend. (Yes, this did actually happen to me!) In all of these cases (all real, by the way), you always look back in retrospect and ask the age-old question -- what the hell was I thinking?

But what if you needed that course to graduate? What if, on the transcript of life, you needed to have a passing grade in the 'Stupid' class? After all, it's only after you have these experiences that you're really able to keep them or anything like them, from happening again.

I like to think that life is full of prerequisites (like naive and immature, and maybe even reckless and irresponsible) that serve as building blocks for the majors in life -- like career, marriage, children, or caring for elderly parents. It's when we don't learn from those pre-reqs that we fail and end up dropping out before ever receiving a passing grade. And that's when you have to repeat the course.

So where are you in your degree? Are you well on your way to graduation or are you stuck in freshman seminar?