Earlier today I wrote a blog post in which I addressed my 13 year old Self, hoping to pass on a little hope and wisdom to her years ahead. Although it wasn’t anywhere close to my best work, I found it to be healing and significant nonetheless.

This afternoon, I went to the local DMV to finally apply for a North Carolina drivers license. When I was filling out my registration, the agent mentioned that I was already on file from 1996, when I received a government ID in order to fly alone, which I had forgotten about until that moment. A freaking HOUR later, I sat in the chair and tried not to look dead-eyed for my license photo (Unsuccessful.) When the agent took my picture she glanced at the screen and kinda snorted before giving me the universal “Heh. Come here; you’re gonna love this” hand signal.

I turned the corner and was instantly stunned into paralysis, while the same brace-faced, clueless 13 year old girl I’d only just spoken to earlier today smiled back at me from the screen. (Apparently, they never discarded my photograph for official documentation purposes.) Her face, full of monobrowed, padded-headbanded glory and aching insecurity sat directly beside the image of my immediate Self, who appeared calm, suitably groomed and a bit more sure of herself than she actually is.

And for a moment, there at the Sanford DMV, it was just the two of them staring at me and the two of me staring back. And none of us knowing what it meant but all of us knowing that we understood.

Later, I asked my husband if it sounded crazy to wonder if my sentimental message of hope and love released into the Universe in hopes to reach 13 year old Me actually did have any sort of effect on how I was able to maintain a glimmer of hope in the times between 13 and 26 years old when there seemed not to be any left at all. He said it didn’t sound insane to him, but then, he’s used to obliging my Crazy - so long as it’s of the harmless variety - so I’m still a little leery.

Something about directly conjuring her image last night and admitting to myself that I did love her, I do love her, I always have loved her and writing it all down and sending that love and forgiveness and hope for her out into the Universe (via blogosphere) only to be directly confronted with her in the physical realm later that day in a completely unexpected situation that was just a random occurrence… her image taken at that exact, crucial age, during the Autumn, in a place I would never expected to encounter her again… It all just seems like a bit more than coincidence, given the specifics and the time frame.

I’d like to believe I received a “Thank you”, sent from a Self I was many years ago. Suddenly, I feel connected to this Self again with the realization that we’ve healed from each other. I’m not busy hating her and blaming her for her inevitable flaws because I see where this rugged, nearly insurmountable path has lead me, with her as my guide. And she doesn’t have any more pain from my abandoning and betraying of her at every opportunity I had, mostly because she sees how it is helping her grow, (even if it’s not her first choice method.)

Whatever insane, metaphysical energy shift that just happened, I do know that this tiny event/coincidence will warm my heart far longer than any other relationship’s resolution has.

I wonder what our reunion will look like when I am 39.

For about the last six months, my dreams have conducted three separate affairs with three separate men in a series of rather steamy encounters. This is humorous to me, not because I find humor in extramarital affairs (quite the opposite, actually), but because my mind actually supposes that I could possibly conjure enough discipline to have even one discreet long-term operation. And so the idea of possibly having the discipline for three is absolutely hysterical.

I don’t really care what the subconscious implications of such a strange mental phenomenon are, to be honest. I just think it’s interesting because my mind is able to keep track of each affair from dream to dream, remembering instances and quotes from each dream and transferring this knowledge to the others. The gentlemen my subconscious has chosen are equally as bizarre as none are particularly important male figures in my life. In fact, all of them are brief character blips in the overall synopsis of my life, but my mind has, in the course of the last half-year, created entire relationships between myself and these men who are only nonfiction in name and appearance. What I mean is that in addition to creating completely fictitious relationships, my mind has delicately crafted these men into complex characters (maybe caricatures, actually) that I am apparently unable to resist. Again, the men involved are people I really don’t know, but I [creepily, freakishly] have developed these entire personas subconsciously that inevitably have nothing to do with the people they actually are today.

Anyway, just about the time I forget about the terribly erotic affairs I conduct while asleep, another will crop up and run its course for about a week and I wake up feeling strangely rejuvenated, but also incredibly guilty, as if I’ve actually been unfaithful to my husband.