Old Boyfriends and Other Pathetic Things

Today I found out that I'm going to be interviewed for Israeli radio on Sunday night. (Monday morning, Israel time). What's the first thing I think of? That my book will now have a better chance of selling in its Israeli translation? That my parents' friends will hear me on the radio and be excited? That my brother will hear me on the radio and have some sense of what I do? No, No, and No. What I'm all in a lather about is that my OLD BOYFRIEND, with whom I broke up in 1991, will hear me. My old boyfriend. Who I broke up with. Me, not him. Let me repeat that: I BROKE UP WITH HIM. (Of course he then immediately got another girlfriend, sending me into a hysterical tailspin of jealousy, but that's beside the point.) Actually, maybe that is the point. Here I am, fourteen years later, and I'm all smug because he's going to hear me on the radio and I'm going to be all that and he's going to .... Whatever. Nothing. He's going to do nothing, because he probably works in a dairy barn on his kibbutz and will be out shoeing cattle, or whatever it is they do, and will not hear me at all.

The thing is, I'm in a terrific marriage. I adore my husband; he's the sexiest thing I've ever met, and the most brilliant. The last thing in the world I care about is this old boyfriend. So what's with the bizarre gloating? Who cares, really? The old boyfriend has moved on. He's probably forgotten my name and the six years we spent together. Six years in which we had dozens of arguments every day, with me doing both sides, because he was uncommunicative to the point of catatonic. Six years which ended fourteen years ago. I wish I could just grow up.