In Dreams - "It's her!"

(side note: I've been fighting a cold since Friday afternoon, and the meds are working. Good news is I sleep soundly. Bad news is in such sound sleep, I get crazy dreams.)

The dream starts with me living in a townhouse in a mid-sized city (think 60K or so population). The townhouse is above a casual dining place, so there is usually activity nearby day and night.

I go downstairs to get some eats, and there she is. We'll call her Penelope.

(Back story - Penelope was my first crush in junior high. First day of school that year, I arrive before the front doors are unlocked. Nervous, because the elementary school I attended the year before wasn't a feeder school to this junior high. So, odds were good I wouldn't know anyone.

I'm sitting on the curb outside the front door, and a bus pulls up. She is the first one off. She was cute, and beyond cute. What was most attractive though was she was calm and self-possessed. She carried herself confidently but not arrogantly, kind to everyone she met. I was captured that instant. Her poise was something I hadn't seen before, and only rarely since.

Me, being awkward and nervous, didn't approach her that day. Over the next three years, our paths crossed but I never mustered the nerve to talk to her at length. I'm sure she is happily married to this day, and her husband is one fortunate fellow.)

Anyway, Penelope is in the casual dining place, and our eyes meet. She welcomes me over to her table, I make myself comfortable, and we chat for a while. It only seemed like a few minutes, but we covered so much about our respective pasts. Even in that present scene, she still had that poise, that sense of calm in her spirit. Even we both are now middle-aged, she looked as beautiful as she did as a teenager.

We ate, chatted some more, then decided to take a walk. There was a pier nearby, so we went towards the water to watch the sunset. I had this sense that she had all the time in the world, and I was in no hurry for our time together to end. Then, the alarm went off. This was one time the alarm hadn't gone off when it did, to be sure.

I'm not on Facebook, since there are precious few folk from my past with whom I'd even want to keep in touch, but Penelope would be first on the list (that is, if I knew she was single AND interested in hearing from me).