I don’t necessarily believe in coincidental life lessons handed out by the universe, God or some other Zen balancing equation. I don’t believe doing something ‘good’ or ‘evil’ is going to add or subtract points in the AD&D adventure we call life. I do believe if we keep an open mind, if we take in everything life has to offer, we can learn things in everything that can help us maintain a happy life. You know there was a popular book years ago that was called All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Watching Star Trek. Being a geek I know how true that is. I just wrote something about how I would suppress myself and allowed myself space to release some desires by setting aside time so I had permission to act out some of those vices. It was exactly the premise of TOS episode called Return of the Archons. My first introduction into the mysteries of women came from T’Pring’s treatment of Spock from TOS episode Amok Time.

Star Trek wasn’t the only thing that I used as a cross reference for life. I have a huge collection of comics, DVD and other things because of an episode of Good Times when the Evans family went to a bank to get a loan and they didn’t have collateral so they were refused. There were a bunch of black shows in the 70s that made a joke about black people not having collateral. I didn’t want to be the joke. One year when I was low on rent money, I painfully sold my prized Canon XL1 camera so I could pay the rent. Another time, actually about six or seven years ago, I sold a Playboy collection for $1000 so I could pay off bills.

I’m writing all this because I got another life lesson from, of all places, the TV show How I Met Your Mother. Ted and the Mother were talking and she said Ted is a guy who lives in his stories while life moves forward. A few hours later, I was on Facebook and I saw a post from an old ‘play-crush’ of mine and she was celebrating her birthday. She has accomplished a lot in her life; found herself a good guy and is working for an international institute for women. One friend from high school got married and her and her husband work for the UN. She has even met Hillary Clinton. One of my best friend is a scientist in Portland and has a wonderful wife and kids. There’s another not so ‘play-crush’ (I guess to be honest there are a couple of play-crushes that fall in this category) who is constantly on Facebook but hasn’t responded to me in years. I’ve sent direct messages with no reply and I would figure if she didn’t want to talk to me anymore she would have un-friended me but it hasn’t happened.

There’s another ‘play-crush’ that isn’t so much of a play-crush, who I look at on Facebook and sometimes I wonder why I didn’t say anything sooner. I’m happy for the life she has now but not happy. She isn’t the one that got away. No that designation is saved for Anne Drake. I knew her for less than a year when I went to UCLA, she disappeared a year later and I carried a torch for her close to ten years.

After all that soul searching I shamefully realized a part of my life could have been called How I Lost Your Potential Mother. I thought about the years lost waiting for Anne, the years hoping some potential ‘play-crush’ would turn into something real and how I put myself in a box where I felt I was too old and was too scared to acknowledge my current internal Facebook status wasn’t healthy for me. Life for a lot of people had moved forward but I was still spinning stories to stay in the past.

I wasn’t too mad at this revelation about myself. I didn’t get angry about time wasted, I didn’t want to go back in time or go now and reveal feelings that I held in mental jars for years. The truth is those feelings have been collecting dust on the shelf for years. I can easily remember the good but the bad can come and sneak up behind you. It has to be remembered that time changes people. When I was at my high school reunion last August a few of us decided it might be col to plan a Star Wars movie reunion. Look, I’m someone who can put a few things in a backpack, leave food for the cat and I’m good to go anywhere. Most of my high school friends have families and while I would be perfectly comfortable to sit on the sidewalk for a few days at a theater showing the new Star Wars, I doubt someone with a significant other with a couple of kids would be able to do the same.

Time goes on.

So I got to see my life through the television eyes of HIMYM and I’m not sure what I’m seeing. I know I cling to the past a lot, vainly hoping some past ‘play-crush’ might change while staying in a situation that is emotionally convenient but empty. I would hate to think my life is the male equivalent of Being Mary Jane or any other female centric show, but maybe I’m doing some things I do to because I’ve made my own mental safety nets and I’ve forgotten what it is like to live forward.

Well, to the many play-crushes out there, I thank you. For better or worse, you’ve had a hand in making me what I am today. Some have been kind, some have been rough, but you all taught me something about myself.