Sometimes it takes a lifetime

I have seldom met a stranger.

Mostly because I am interested in people.  I ask questions and they talk and that is our jumping off point.

So . . .  one might think that I fit in everywhere!

I don't.

In fact, I have almost never found myself feeling like one of the crowd.  I have always felt more like someone looking in on the crowd -- until I met bestest.

Perhaps because we are both writers and that was how we communicated for a very long time, writing two and three emails a day and thousands of texts, but when we came face to face, instead of finding that interesting stranger I am used to, I met someone so much like me that I could almost predict his thoughts.

For the first time I could ever remember, someone was asking me questions.  We drew each other out.

We are so much alike we could be twins born to different parents generations apart -- and yet we are different.  This person is someone who has taken all of my gifts and used them to their fullest.  This is who I could have been had I not been afraid to be me.

What I do with that at this point in my life is a mystery, like one of those hidden picture books, I am discovering more and more about me that is likable and I am amazed that I thought it should have been kept hidden.

Funny how I met all those strangers, but never met myself until now.