No Freaking Way

I've never been one of the unfortunates who have trouble sleeping.
When I was little my Mother requested afternoon kindergarten because I slept in.
I've always slept a lot.
I'd sleep ten hours a night if time permitted.
But last night I didn't sleep more than a wink.

That has happened to me very few times, all at seemingly poignant moments in my life.

The first time was when I was falling in love and I stayed up all night watching Magnolia and reading the Ee Cummings poetry book my theatre teacher had given me as a graduation gift.

Another night was when a kid I barely knew wrote me a beautiful love song and overcome by the outpour of infatuation I was unable to sleep and wrote a poem that was one of the first pieces I genuinely felt proud of.

The other was the night I felt the Spirit whisper softly that it was indeed over and he, unable to sleep as well, called in the middle of the night and we had what was to be the beginning of the Longest Goodbye.

And so tonight, awaking from a brief sleep and frightful dream, I began reading the first book Prince Charming had finished cover to cover and found myself dismayed when hours later I had to get ready for work.
Something about insomnia stirred unceremonious thoughts in my brain opening doors into untapped vortexes, allowing me to see things for possibly the first time.

And so on this eve (or morn, whichever you prefer) I saw the trueness of our unfinished sort of love story and also my acceptance that the whole thing was simply not enough.

"Goddamn it a princess deserves better than this."

And so it began.

And I had no freaking clue the comedy Fate had in store.

I went into work at the store that's not even my home store that I'm only working at for a few months, that's a total fluke I even happen to be working there at all.  And who of all whose should come in?  But the ever elusive Mr. Dreamy.  During the summer Mr. Dreamy had come into my old store maybe a couple times a month and every time he happened to come in I fell all over myself trying to think of things to say to him while I got him his tall black coffee.  The first time I saw Mr. Dreamy I was on my break eating a sandwich and when he walked in the door he looked so much like the dreaded Narcissus that I nearly choked on my egg salad.  I called my Mom to tell her what had happened and she said, I can just see the tombstone now, 'woman dies from choking on sandwich upon seeing beautiful man.' 

A humorous beginning to any sort of relationship that may ensue, no doubt.

I had the perfect segway too because my play was going to go up soon and I figured I'd give him a flyer to my show.  Yet as Fate would comically have it, the times he would actually come in I was out of flyers.  Once he was sitting outside and I thought I'd bring him one and when I went out to hand him one he'd already taken off.
It's just not meant to be, I told myself.
And that was fine.
A princess always has her eye on more than one prince.

So today, after my night of sleep deprivation and literary indulgence, this Mr. Dreamy comes through my Starbucks doors.  And not only is it happenstance to be running into him again at this new locale after all these months but he seems just as excited to see me as I am to see him.  Maybe he was just making polite conversation at the register.  Maybe it was just amusing seeing me in a new element after all this time.  But something in my feminine intuition told me this one, this one saw me with eyes similar to the ones who viewed me like I was a hot fudge sundae.

He sat with his laptop at the table across from my register and I swear I saw out of the corner of my eye his lips fashion into a smile when I told some customer I liked my men like I liked my wine: dark and strong.
However much time later I was standing in line, ordering my drink to take my break and reading once again the book I'd been torn prematurely from this morning. 

As I began walking away from the register, there he was standing beside me.  And placing a hand on my back reminiscent of Prince Charming and his lingering touch he told me he was taking off.  Something in his touch stunned me; we'd talked maybe four times in the past four months and here he was reaching out to me with the familiarity of a long lost lover.  It, too, reminded me of Prince Charming and how comfortable and at ease we'd been around each other.  You took some of the food I had sitting on my lap without even asking me, I told him once.  It was like we were already lovers.

And now this stranger, as if sensing the cosmic alignment of our paths crossing once again felt the need to connect with me before he left.
This is so funny, I said nervously.
Yeah, I live just down the street, he informed me.
Then he uncandidly snuck a look from rhinestone necklace to ballet flat shoes.
I blushed at being taken in by this stranger.
I'll see you around, he said as he backed up towards the door.

And I couldn't believe on this particular day, when my hair and makeup were particularly flawless, and I'd awoken with a resolved resoluteness and he had seemed merely a lost fantasy of months prior,
this new Prince and I sparked.

No freaking way.