Have you ever wondered how many people you almost meet in your life? It’s a strange way to look at things, really, but how many people do you almost run into that you don’t even know you were this close to seeing again. “Almost’s” always happen, but we never even know it. Unless of course we happen to actually run into the person, unless our paths physically cross, do we ever even understand that every little action determines the course of all other actions. And we realize that if we had stayed on the west side of the street, and had not crossed over to the east side, we would never have known that we were actually on the same block as someone we had once shared more than the concrete with.

I had thought about her often, in fact more often in the past few weeks. I’m not sure why, except that we had been close for a while and we hadn’t really spoken in over a year. We hadn’t kept in touch much since I moved to San Francisco, and not at all since I’ve been back. We hadn’t seen each other since the time two winters ago when we actually made it a point to get together and not leave it up to chance.

When our paths crossed in front of the candle shop, we both just looked at each other and smiled. “I had a dream about you last night,” she said. “I really, really did!” You’re magical,” I told her. And I had always believed this, and it was there, not far from another person who was now sharing that same place that she had once shared in my life, it was there on the sidewalk that I knew this for sure.

In the bitter, biting cold of a New York winter there isn’t much to say on the street. “Can we get together?” she asked. “Of course,” I replied.

After I gave her my number, and an open invitation to stay a part of my life, we walked our separate ways. And as I called my friend to tell her the randomness of our encounter, I realized there are just certain people who are in your life “forever”. People that you know you will stay in touch with because you’ve run into them on the street on more than one occasion. Fuck, you may have even met them on the street that first time, which, at present, seems like many moons ago.

You may not understand what role they will come to have in your life, and if it will ever be a bigger role than they once played, but there are certain people that hold a strong connection to your soul. Maybe she’s from another life, or another time, or another planet. But she is one of these people, like in that movie Dead Again that will never stop resurfacing.

Today at 12 noon on Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street I ran into her. And I know one thing for sure, it won’t be the last time we see each other.