She Only Dreams in Black & White

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if she was able to count them all, she would see that 12,456 people have passed through her life. she will have met 65,657 by the end.

there was her kindergarten teacher who told her she’d be a flight attendant some day (she did not), the manager at her first job, and the young man she went out on two dates with but decided on the first date that she didn’t like him because of his inability to talk about anything other than himself. she will never know what happened to them. she will never hear that the first one died of cancer seventeen later. her former boss still manages the restaurant she only thinks of twice a year, randomly, when someone mentions the word “skillet”. the last one is married now and lives with his wife and two kids in new jersey.

don’t they all live in new jersey?

she doesn’t have romantic notions anymore because she’s exactly where she wants to be. as she lies on his bed, watching the pattern the sun makes through the trees, she touches the sheets to remind herself of this. she thinks of the first time they met and she realizes there will never be another moment like that. now there is a love, when before it was about the possibility. no more feeling the rush of “what if” because his secrets are hers now. they combined storylines.

today on her bike ride home she noticed a dog thoughtfully looking at a tree and a team building exercise involving segways. when she spoke to her grandmother later that day, she didn’t mention either of these things. she couldn’t think of anything to talk about. her brain have had given up the ability to imagine anything. this concerned her grandmother who in turn told her mother that she thought something was wrong with her.

she had a dream last night that her hair had turned gray. when she woke up, she went to the mirror to examine and noticed that two stubby gray hairs had sprouted in her part. what it meant, she wasn’t sure. all she knew as that in pictures of herself now she looks like the woman she was meant to become. someone vaguely familiar.

but the picture hasn’t become clear yet.