Two nights ago I dreamed of someone I hadn’t thought about in years: my first truly momentous, heart shattering crush from seventh grade.

The boy in question was tall, blonde and tanned, with bright blue searching eyes and good looks similar to the teen movie stars in my monthly copies of Tiger Beat magazine, but in the flesh and sitting only two rows away from me in homeroom.

Yes, I shamefully stared at this boy out of the corner of my eyes each and every day, and dreamed of the moment I would work up the courage to spout more than three coherent words to him, the response to which would be his declaration of undying love (insert heavy teenage sigh).

Awk-ward

My crush was, of course, one of the popular kids, while I was decidedly unpopular, an awkward and insecure mess with tangled hair and perpetual embarrassment over the conservative and sometimes second-hand clothing my mother bought for me to wear (thrift store style wasn’t hip in the ’80s like it is today). I had no idea how to put on makeup or shave my legs, and was completely flustered when it came to flirting. I looked at the popular girls with consuming envy, because I had no clue how to be one of them. I was simultaneously in awe and utterly dismayed.

My limited knowledge of feminine whiles came from my mother, who was more versed in hiking and mathematics than mascara and making eyes at boys. I still remember the lopsided grin on her face when — in a rare moment of girly advice — she demonstrated how if I found the object of my affection looking at me, I should smile and slowly turn my head away (while still smiling) to let him know I liked him. Her presentation was more 1950s Cheshire cat with stiff neck than Marilyn Monroe sideways glance under long lashes, but I didn’t have any experience to compare.

So when the next school day came, I tried out this new tactic — verbatim to my mother’s example — and a look of utter confusion, mingled with what I interpreted as disdain, flickered through those perfect blue eyes. A swell of panic engulfed me, and I spent the rest of seventh grade in a mortified blur, averting my gaze from his general direction altogether. We never spoke a word to each other, and by the time eighth grade started, he had moved away.

Years later, my crush briefly and unexpectedly reentered my life, when we enrolled in the same college poetry class in the ’90s. He was still handsome, I was still somewhat awkward, but I had also begun to discover myself through poetry and music, and had mostly lost those notions of “popular” and “unpopular.”

We had several occasions to chat with each other that semester, in class and also at the house of a mutual friend. By that time, I had fully developed my ability to be comfortable with anyone, including strangers, so on the surface the conversations flowed easily enough, buoyed by a shared love of writing and poetic gravitas. But deep inside, that thirteen-year-old girl was triggered every time I saw him, part old crush flaring, part unmitigated shame at the thought that he had — perish the thought — noticed my obsessive staring back in that seventh grade classroom and I was never going to live it down.

But the topic never arose, and after that semester he disappeared from my life once more. In fact, I have scarcely given him much thought since then, except once several years ago when an old classmate mentioned he was living on the West Coast, with a family and a good career, and I was happy at the thought.

Wakey, Wakey

So I was genuinely surprised when, the other night while in deep, deep slumber, some random dream-friend (those people you only know in your dreams) in some random dream building turned to introduce me to her husband, and it was HIM. My first crush. It wasn’t the seventh grade boy with flawless skin who greeted me, nor the angst-filled poet from college, but how I imagine he might look today, mid-40s, slight crows feet around his striking blue eyes, a little thicker in the chest perhaps and older, but still handsome, and still very much HIM.

It astounded me even more when, as we recognized each other in the dream, a joyous smile spread across his face and he enfolded me in a warm and welcoming hug.

Suddenly, everything shifted into crisp, lucid clarity, and I grasped that I was having one of those exceedingly uncommon dreams when you realize that you are dreaming, and the universe is conveying some pivotal message that you might not fully understand for days, if ever, and oh what a beautiful experience that is. For a long moment, he stared deeply into my eyes, seeming truly happy to see me, the faint crinkles in his face lighting up his baby blues with an effervescent smile that I felt to my core.

And I woke up.

(insert grown-up “Wow.”)

Afterdream

I let the dream lurk in the background for a couple of days, afraid of delving too deeply into an era I have heretofore avoided with great shame, for reasons so much more than this. Shame for who I was, for how I acted, for what I felt. But when I finally sat to write it all down, and opened to the flood of those seventh-grade emotions, the vision was from a slightly different angle than I expected. I felt compassion and even a touch of humor as I witnessed once more the bumbling antics of a gangly and heartbroken teenager who had no idea how rich life would become, once she survived those awkward years.

I may still feel like an ugly duckling sometimes, but I also feel beautiful, and capable, and real, and blessed to perceive how far I’ve come and even thrived because of that time. And perhaps in another lifetime, my old crush and I might have become true friends, bonding over poetry and laughing about the good ole days. I hope, wherever he is now, that he is healthy, and that his life is rewarding and good.

And so today I am beaming a heartfelt and unwavering smile out across the cosmos, sending affection and well wishes — and a great big thank you — straight into those dreamy blue eyes.

This time, I won’t look away.