I “knew” her sister first

This was back in the days of MySpace. I hate that I’m dating myself like this, but oh well. I think it was like 2006. Sister sent me a MySpace PM and we exchanged some chatty missives. She was a fan, love fans. Anyway, do you all remember the “Top Friends” slots on those profiles? (This question is not for the younger generations.) Sarah was in sister’s top friends, aww, cute, back in simpler times. I’m not sure why but the photo caught me off guard and I spent a fair amount of time looking at it. She was pretty, but in an unconventional way, with lovely green eyes.

I’ve always been an “observer,” yeah, let’s call it that… I had a few dozen people I liked keeping tabs on. All totally legal stuff, you know, like the kind of thing everyone does nowadays when they follow someone on Instagram. Socially acceptable, non-invasive stalking. I added her to my pile and didn’t give the thought of her any special attention. I just liked her silly vibe and the funny way she designed her space. I think she had that song, “I’m naked” by Stereo Total as the theme, Silly.

She was always on the move. Every time I was about to take her out of my lineup, she would go somewhere else and then I wanted to see what would happen next, so I just left her in the rotation for giggles. At this point you could hardly classify this as obsession, more of a bored interest. I like to have different character types in my rotation because it helps my writing. She had her own flavor, so I kept her on the shelf. Weird side-note! She met one of my musician acquaintances through MySpace and met him in Canada for a date. Such a coincidence. After that I filed her into the “groupie” category. 

 I would check on her every so often over the years, maybe once a month, if even. She started doing some interesting work in the industry and traveling to some places I had been and loved, so I began to feel a bit of a kinship with her. She lived thousands of miles from me so I never expected to see her in real life and I was fine with that, as I was with all my online interests, but after she left the industry she did a big trip and didn’t plan to go home when she was done. In one of the wildest twists of fate I’ve ever lived through, when she ended her trip she moved to my city. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES? I was so astounded, but it is a big city so I got over that pretty soon. Until one day, there she was, standing in front of me waiting to get on the train. We were just blocks from my place. I could not believe it was really her. I could smell her hair and Dear Lord it was like bubble gum, I wanted to taste it, I wanted to touch it. I sat where I could see her on the train. She didn’t look up from her book. I was able to watch her up until the second she got to her stop. It was an incredible feeling.  After that day I began checking her socials on an hourly basis. I needed to find a way to “bump” into her again.