Secret Life of Me

Librarians are not born, they are made. What I mean by this is that I would bet some Celebrity Poker Showdown amount that almost every librarian has come to the profession after being trained in or being employed in some other career that is totally unrelated to librarianship. (An aside- how much do I love the word "librarianship"? It's so nautical, so Star Trek, so Shirley Temple). I would guess that not many of our ranks seriously dreamt of, planned for, or plotted to become a librarian as a child. As a matter of fact, I sat on the Admissions committee for an MLIS program, and not ONE of the hundreds of applicant essays that I read spoke of a lifelong dream to some day become a librarian. Time after time, I hear stories from other librarians of their "former lives," where they were trained to be dancers, journalists, computer programmers, whatever. This is what makes us, both collectively and individually, such interesting jacks-and-janes-of-all-trades. It also makes for really funny exchanges with people from our pasts that would have never, ever pictured us as librarians back when they knew us.

On the other hand, maybe we all have trouble picturing those people from our childhood as adults who are making choices that we never thought they would make, doing unexpected things and living lives that we never dreamt they would have.

So this was all brought home to me the first time I re-connected with Luscious J, whose present life is as different as mine is from our shared past together. Luscious J was the guy in high school who gave me that Say Anything moment of playing a love song to me outside of my house when I was 16, only it was If Only Tonight We Could Sleep by the Cure, not In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel. Please don't mock me for the song, it's still a good memory, ok? Ok, you can mock. I can take it.

We started talking again a few years ago, about once a year, over the phone, long distance. As great as our conversations are, there invariably comes a point in the conversation where it goes from Say Anything to Say Whaaaat, because we just can't get over where the other has ended up. We just can't. Maybe it's because we haven't seen each other in person since high school, and we just can't picture the future that we now both live in. This makes the conversation somewhat less articulate.

"You're a librarian? A librarian???? YOU???"
"Yeah, I am!"
"How did THAT happen? Where did that even come from?"
"Honestly, I don't know. It just did."
"YOU? A librarian? Really?"
"Really."
"Wow."

I'm guilty too. Luscious J was a bad boy, sweet but kind of dangerous. Lots of his friends came to unsavory ends. But yet, there he is, happily married, kids, steady job and coach of the high school basketball team.

"You have a minivan??? YOU???"
"Yeah. Funny, huh?"
"And you're a dad. Wow. I can't get over it."
"Check it out- we even took a family vacation to Disneyworld!"
"Shut up! You're killing me!"

Each New Year, he sends me a card with a photo of him and his family enclosed. He still looks the same- same young face and I guiltily can't look at it without thinking about what a great kisser he was.

And I send him a letter each year in return, regaling him with librarian stories, knowing that on some level, this new grown-up me just will not compute for him either.

Despite the mutual incredulity of this situation, I still think librarians as a group have a really high ratio of Secret Past Lives. Almost everyone I work with has such a story. I'm guessing you librarians out there reading this have your own back story that not a lot of people would guess that you have. We're a bunch of Sydney Bristows, overflowing with secrets. Look around at your co-workers. Hard to believe, isn't it? But trust me, it's true. Ask one.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl