WHERE DID WE MEET AGAIN?

Where did we meet again? Have I seen you before? Didn’t we speak last night?

As I am trying to remember, my mind is drawing a blank. Isn’t that funny? Because we actually revealed so much to each other in those few short moments we spent escaping the noise from outside. We discussed everything from where you got your shoes to your aspirations in life. You want to be a clinical psychologist, and I told you I want to work with animals. We were like long-lost childhood friends. You insisted we would hang out again and meet up the following week for coffee, but I never even learned your name. Our conversation seemed to last for hours, and it was comforting. A connection that feels once in a lifetime.

But then my friends pulled me into the stall as I said, “I’ll meet you out there.” The whole time I’m telling my friends how cool you were and how they would love you. We finish up, and I take a look in the mirror. Have I looked like this the whole night? I touch up my lipstick and fix my smudged eyeliner, ready to go back out there. I lead my friends out of the bathroom, repeating that they have to meet you. We push through the crowd as I’m looking for your familiar face. I can’t find you. And I won’t for the rest of the night. I’m having fun with my friends, but I can’t help but think of the friend I may have lost in you. I guess I’ll never get to borrow your shoes, and you’ll never figure out how I did on the exam I said I was so nervous for.

Of course, I don’t immediately remember all of this. This night is only remembered in bits and pieces, like a light flickering on and off. Over the next few days, glimpses of this night come back to me, resurfacing the ease I felt with you.

But naturally, at this moment, we have already walked by each other. No eye contact made, no smile exchanged, nothing. Do you even recognize me? This familiar unfamiliarity is where we now stand. I know so much about you but nothing at all, and you, the same about me. Will we ever speak again? Maybe we will someday acknowledge that we met before, but starting a conversation is so difficult without courage coursing through my veins. Or maybe we will see each other out again and pick up right where we left off. I want to. Because I already miss you, whoever “you” may be.