Warren and a Jacket

Oh that nostalgia thing.  It's been really bad lately.  And so let me tell you about my jacket.  In sixth grade we moved to Vancouver.  And I had a dark blue Levi corduroy jacket.  I loved that jacket.  I'm pretty sure it came from the boys' section at the store.  I wore it out.
I was not the only kid at my new school to wear one.  The coolest, cutest boy in sixth grade also had one.  One day we were both wearing our jackets at the same time and as he walked by me he told me "great jacket".  I could have been knocked over with a feather.  Warren had talked to me and we wore the same jacket.  I can almost feel the exact feelings I felt.  Now I don't know if it is good or bad, but when you are shy and having a tough time with transitioning to another new school (third new in a year), it is a giddy feeling to have a cool kid notice you for something nice.
Now Warren and I were not friends.  We lived by each other.  We went to school together through graduation.  I'm pretty sure we didn't have any classes together in high school.  I was on the college track and I'm not sure where he was.  Just that he was there still being the cutest guy in class all the way through.  He had dreamy green eyes and curly hair you just wanted to feel.  He was popular and I was a ghost.  Graduation came and I only saw him once after that.  At our ten year high school reunion.
Skip ahead to our 35 year high school reunion.  I attended, he did not.  I blogged before about another classmate, Brian, who did.  Well after the reunion I facebook stalked Brian and saw a comment from Warren.  I had searched for Warren before but had not found him.  Now I had a way to do that and I did.  He is settled on the lower east coast.  Has a family and a church he likes.  And something was posted that led me to believe he had found recovery.
Yesterday I just had one of those little inklings to look up Warren.  And so I did.  He still has a family, a church and recovery.  I found a video where he tells his story.  And I cried.  He talked about his youth and using when I knew him.  He made references to things I knew about like the dump and his cousins.  He told so many things that I had no clue and it really shows how you do NOT know what someone else is going though.  He was just one of the cool kids.  Too cool to have a real conversation with.  Cool stays with cool and ghosts stay with ghosts.  The video was the last thing I watched before I went to sleep and it stayed with me.
Today I decided that I would send Warren a message and tell him about his coolness.  The coolness that he never felt.  He never thought he was popular or worthy.  Trauma causes so much damage and it takes a long time to overcome.  Now I can't do anything for Warren.  I can't fix it.  I can just offer him a moment of remembering some good things like how he made a shy girl feel good one day with no effort.  That takes a special skill set.  And even more amazing if he didn't know he had it.  He's okay and taking life one day at a time.  He took time out of his day today to chat with me because he saw me typing on his messenger (and that made telling the story different).  It was the longest conversation we ever had.  And it was nice to catch up and come at it from a different place.
Light and love Warren as you continue on your recovery journey and I hope life gets easier.  One day at a time.