One the same day somewhere in time...

I had a birthday recently.  Though most people may associate this with parties and unbridled happiness, my birthday comes at the exact center of the year and stands for nothing more than more bills than usual to pay.  One of the most suspenseful of bills is the long tradition of getting my car emissions done in order to register my car.  I have a penchant for older cars with lots of health problems.  If I was a 6 foot blonde, I'd have a history of dating men on life support.  For the past 10 years or so, the week before my birthday was spent visiting various emission stations to see the machine with the most issues that would pass my oil leaking, coughing, clanking car.  This year was no different.  8 months ago I fell for a 19 year old Saab with imported health problems (i.e. expensive) and finally found an emission station that took such old boys and spoke Swedish.  While sitting in the waiting room praying to the car gods, I came face to face with a version of myself from the future.


She pulled up in a fairly new car - it looked maybe 5 years old at the most.  It was a sedan/van hybrid but still hip for the 75 year old woman that parked it and came inside the waiting room.  She asked for emission testing also and the service guy told her she was after me.  She looked at me, smiled and came over to sit down.  She was really old but dressed to the nines.  White suit, periwinkle blouse that was low enough to show a fancy gold necklace and white sandals.  She had a white patent snake-skin clutch to match and her toes and fingernails were the same shade of purple as her blouse.  She was made up like she'd done her makeup a thousand times with products that I could never afford.  Her hair was a reddish blonde and cut short like Dorothy Hamill’s used to be in the 80’s.  The only thing that showed her true age was her wrinkly and spotty skin and the fact that she walked hunched a bit and very slow.


She chatted like older people were taught was polite to do.  When she mentioned that she had to get her emissions before Saturday, I mentioned that my birthday was also on Saturday and that was also the reason I was there.  She looked at me longingly and smiled slowly.  “Oh, I’ve got a lot of years on you, dear.”  For the first time in a long time, I was impolite by mistake and agreed with her.  Somehow the conversation got onto the using the internet to pay your taxes and she bewailed that nothing good had ever come of her using the internet.  Her granddaughter had gotten her on Facebook awhile back and a guy from her college years had looked her up.  “College was over 100 years ago,” she said, touching her face. “and he found out I was recently single again.  He told me he’d had a crush on me all these years since college and sent me a picture of himself then and now.”


I nearly fell off my chair.  Before my eyes, she transformed back into a 19 year old petite winsome creature with blonde highlights and fresh skin.  She was probably really perky and didn’t have a shortage of friends or admirers.  Then I thought of this pimple faced lanky guy sitting outside the wooden doors of a Auburn University classroom waiting for the woman he fantasized about day and night to come out so he could ask to carry her books.  She’d giggle, look around at her girlfriends and tell him he was a sweetie before chatting off down the hall.


“What did you do?” I exclaimed.  “Did you recognize him?”
 

“I did.” She said as her voice trailed off a bit.  “But it’s been over 50 years.” She screwed her face up in realization of logic. “That was just weird; to contact me like that.  That’s just weird.”


It hit me then that it would never stop.  This game between the sexes was time proof.  If we lived to be 1,000, someone somewhere would always have a story to tell about the mating ritual between men and woman.  Even if you found “the one” as some people believe, in this world, someone always dies first and then you’re back at square one.  Deciding to date, learning how and who to talk to, proclaiming your undying love to those you’ve known before.  Here was a woman, born on the same day I was, in the same situation as I was – single and deciding if or when to become involved in a relationship – 35 years apart and two totally different lives.  I felt the earth stop moving for a second – at least for me – and my outlook on life shifted.
 

The service guy came in then and told me that my car had broken his machine and that I had to go somewhere else.  The older woman was also grumpy about that and mumbled that the traffic would be horrible on her way home.  Before I went back to panic mode about the car, I patted the woman on her knee and told her it was a pleasure to meet her.  It was – more than she would ever know.