the next best thing

I have a special gift for coming second.

I think maybe it's because I peaked too early...first born of four children.  First to make the front page of the paper at age 1.  And again at age 4.  First on the stage at 5.  Won my first ever piano competition at 8.  It was all downhill from there...

I have the dubious honour of being picked not once, not even twice, but actually three times for UNDERSTUDY in the school play.

I was an excellent straight-B student.

In the school orchestra I was always honoured with playing second flute.  And being the subsitute piano player.  Oh and singing alto - but never in the first row, always just behind.

It was my second car (ah the Nissan 180B) that was the cool one - till I wrote it off.

Once I got a speeding ticket for going 90 in a 50 km zone.  I was pretty proud of that, in a weird kind of way - I was late for church.  When I got there, I announced my feat - too late, someone else had got one just before me, going even faster.

I recently met up with a boy I had a secret crush on when I was a teenager.  He married my friend.  

Without exception, every boy I went out with before I got married myself, married their next girlfriend (actually does that make me second or first???).  I often heard 'oh you are just the girl I would like to marry...if I actually WANTED to get married...which I don't...'

Sheesh even when I contracted meningitis in 2004 and was whisked off in an ambulance I arrived at hospital to learn my mother had already been diagnosed and admitted with it!

Maybe I'm just better at following trends than setting them?

I console myself with this:  coming second ACTUALLY means, coming last...First!