And then I woke up

I am fourteen and I have my hair combed nicely with my best sport jacket on and a red bow tie and I know I am the best looking shy, insecure boy at this my first high school dance.

In the distance, I see Carole and I start thinking I must muster enough courage to walk over there and ask her to dance.

I start sweating as I stand there and think of what I should say, how I should say it, and then again, what I should say and how I should say it.                                                                                                            

Song after song plays and I procrastinate. I freeze.

Then I feel myself walking towards her and I think that Wild Horses couldn’t drag me away.

I ask her to dance and she says “no” and she turns away.

My face reddens and I lose control and I blurt out, “Why don’t you like me?”

She stops and turns and says, “Because I love you!”

and she kisses me in front of her friends and says I know a place we can make out every day after school if you want.

And then I woke up…

Fourteen years go by and I am working in a city on my first “real” job in the next state over.

I am at lunch and I glance over at the next table and there is Carole.

We talk and we are surprised to see each other.

We are both single.

Me, from a short failed marriage with my college sweetheart and her having been married to her academia.

Our romance is what is usually described as whirlwind and we eventually settle down to enjoy a wonderful marriage

with three wonderful, now fully grown children and two extremely energetic grandchildren.

Our interests in the arts and social justice are apparent in the social workers, musicians and sculptors, all in various combinations, which are evident in beautiful ways.

And then I woke up.

It is 30 years since high school.

My hopes of a brighter future are dashed.

A thing of the past.

I made some bad choices.

I made some mistakes.

A car crash. I was driving. I had been drinking.

It wasn’t really all who I was or who I am or who I aspired to be.

I was hard working.

I was married at the time.

I don’t know how the alcohol got to me, but it did.

One horrible night it left my drinking buddy dead and I paid for it with a decade of my life in prison.

I got out and could not find a job. I was a pariah.

I gave up. I drank more.

Here I am. I thought I was gonna be somebody.

I thought there’d be a Carole out there for me somewhere.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep,

Watch and guard me through the night, and wake me with the morning light”

As I lay out my sleeping bag under this bridge

And then I woke up.