seeing a ghost

One thing I forgot to mention from yesterday:

When I do this standardized patient stuff, I play a character with some kind of medical issue. The student comes into the room and is supposed to gather important info to give to the doctor. We do this for about ten minutes, and then the attending physician and I give them feedback. Basically, I'm doing improv. For the students, it's an exercise in developing rapport with patients.

So yesterday, this student walked in. I could tell she was pretty, but I was kind of focusing on something else. But when she sat down to do the interview, she did something kind of unusual (and brilliant): she sat down next to me, instead of across the table. So I was about 4 feet away from her, and so (of course) I could really look at her.

And my heart almost stopped.

Why?

Because she was the spitting image of The One That Got Away.

I dated this woman in high school and college, and, without getting into the whole story, basically blew the one shot I had at making something work. The last time I talked to her was two days before her wedding, to tell her I wasn't coming. She was kind of pissed. And she also kind of rebuked me in her Christmas card that year.

I called her parents (who love me) a couple of years ago to get her number, because I had been dreaming about her for a couple of weeks straight, and I left a dumb-ass message on her answering machine. I never heard back from her. Which is probably for the best.

Anyway, this girl was like a taller version of her, and it totally freaked me out. I was able to hold it together during the interview (though I gave up some info probably before I should have), but afterwards I kind of mock-collapsed and told the people in the room the deal. Fortunately they all thought it was funny.