Anyone who knows me, knows I had a crush on Emily F. all through elementary school. Anyone who really knows me, knows I had that same crush all the way through high school too. Honestly, it probably actually lingered through the first few years of college too, until memories of her faded a little. Life moved on and I traveled with it. I haven’t though about her in years. But a few nights ago she showed up in one of my dreams. It wasn’t a sex dream exactly, but it was definitely a romantic one. Oddly enough this wasn’t the first time Emily has showed up randomly in a dream like that. It’s strange that I can go years without ever thinking of her, but then my subconscious drags her memory up while I’m asleep.

I think Emily is rooted somewhere deep in my mind because she was the first girl I ever noticed as, well, a girl. I can still remember the day when we were both turning in our class work and our hands touched. It was that exact moment that I began to see girls differently. I was still too young to really understand what I was starting to experience—the entirety of the birds and the bees were a few years away yet. But that was the moment everything started; it was the first peak behind the curtain. I guess that’s why whenever Emily shows up in one of my dreams, it’s never explicitly sexual, it’s more innocent than that. Yet there is always this feeling hinting at something more, life if the dream went a little longer it would turn R rated. It mimics feeling that first glimpse into adulthood I had the day our hands touched. Funny the way the brain works.