My unrequited love

I saw you last night.

It's been twenty years. It disturbs me how much you, or the idea of you, still affects my life.

When I saw you, I barely recognized you, because you didn't look like you've looked in my dreams, in my thoughts, in my fantasies.

You looked like me. A person who's lived for the past twenty years. Had bad relationships, great sex, some kids, gained things, lost things...

But you still looked so fine.

And I -- I looked my worst. I had just finished my first day at my new job, and I felt like I'd been through the spin cycle. I had been shopping with my kids for two hours, for new shoes and coats and stuff. I had been waiting for the waitress to bring our meals for about a half hour, and I was getting so tired and I just wanted to go home and soak in the bath.

And then I saw you, a dark, shadowy figure in a long suit coat, walking by the window next to where I sat, and then I saw you walk past me, not seeing me, looking at your parents, who I had watched walk past me a few minutes before.

And like twenty years ago, I watched. I didn't move. I didn't breath and didn't speak. I just watched. The vision in my mind, that vision of you, changed. It updated, to the person you now are, the man you've become, so that you could catch up with me, the 40-year-old woman I've become. Tired, changed by life experiences, cynical about how your most treasured dreams never came true.

You didn't see me, and it was just as well, because I didn't look my best. It had been a bad day.

It was also the 11th anniversary of my father's death.

So me, ever the romantic, I got to thinking: is this a gift from my father? Is this a sign from him that you are okay, that you're doing well, that you're still alive? Because for all I've known, you could have been dead for the past 19 years.

I mean, it's funny, after 20 years, that we were on our way to MacDonalds when DH said "why don't we try that" and pointed to the restaurant, and I said "okay" when I knew I probably shouldn't spend so much money, and it was late dinner-wise, but I said "okay" anyway, just in time for him to turn the car into the parking lot. If I'd thought about it any longer, I would never have seen you. I would not be writing this.

When I got home, I took the bath and went to bed, and dreamed of being alone. I was lonely. I was living in my hometown, where we met, and I was alone, worried about how life was passing me by, so I decided to move to where I live now, but I still felt so alone. So empty.

For the past 24 hours, my world has been a dark, rainy night, and everybody in it a dark, shadowy figure in a long suit coat, shielding themselves from the rain.

And then I look at my DH, who has loved me for all these years, and my beautiful kids, and I think that maybe my dad was sending me a gift after all.

Maybe, in spite of how I have felt all these years, things turned out the way they were meant to be.