A dream that comes back every now and then that haunts me

By "haunts" I don't mean anything scary this time... although if you follow my stuff you already know that I regularly dream and sometimes this dreams can be extremely haunting in the traditional sense. In this particular scenario there is a certain person that regularly pops into my dreams that actually is someone that I have a past with and my relationship with this girl was one of a certain "one that got away" sort of thing. It was a really long time ago that I knew her and we were never involved in any sort of romantic anything with one another, but we were an unusual type of friends in that we had very different lives, were in completely different social circles, and would really look out for one another but since I was 3 years older than her, it was mostly me looking out for her.

I can think of a couple of movie type references that would correspond to how we were but mostly I was a social person that was considered a bit "rough around the edges" in that I knew the dangerous sorts of folks, sold a bit of weed in the parking lot, had long hair, smoked cigarettes, and was often in trouble She was the perfect student who would sometimes cry in the hallway over getting anything other than an "A" on an assignment, had very high academic expectations placed on her by her family, and was never ever in any sort of trouble at all. Her name was Jenny and that really is her first name, but I'll leave it at that for now because we haven't seen one another in 30 years and as you would expect, our lives traveled down very different trajectories that didn't include the other person in it at all after we left high school.

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She was kind of a good friend that I am sure that my family would have been very pleased had I gotten involved with, and I am sure her parents would have felt the opposite. This is because although I was well-known in the community, probably more so than she was, a lot of those reasons for me being known was for less-than-admirable reasons. I stayed out of serious trouble but years later I would find out from the teachers at my high school when I would revisit after graduating from both high school and college, that the teachers there were very aware of the fact that I was selling marijuana in the parking lot... as were the police... They left me alone because I wasn't doing very much of it, and to bust me would have seriously damaged my future. They looked at it as an "evil" that if if wasn't being done by me, that it would be getting done by someone else far more dangerous than me and I can agree with that.

No, Jenny's parents probably would have had a problem with me dating her because I looked the part of the "bad boy" even though most of it was an act. I worked hard, saved hard, and mostly didn't have a problem with authorities. The teachers at the school mostly liked me and I was very involved in sports as well as drama club, and that was where me and Jenny met. I was the President of the Drama club and she was a mere member and we worked together on various projects in something we had a mutual love for.... acting. Jenny and I would see each other in the hallway and I think she got a little bit of fame from even knowing me since I was this elusive and odd icon of the school and she was a regular "goody two shoes." She was one of the only normal friends that I had as I seemed to be seeking out the most dangerous and going nowhere type of people to surround myself with.

Before I had a car and driver's license, I would stop by her family house on my bicycle just to talk to her and her parents would let me in and I would sit in the living room with her and we would just talk. I stopped by on a regular basis and she would be all smiles and was genuinely happy to see me. Other than school trips that were organized by the drama club, we never did anything outside of school that was a social event because our circle of friends were very different.

It's is funny to think about it now, but at lunchtime I was in one of the prestige sections of the lunch-room, and she was at a regular table. It's funny to think that such a paradigm that is depicted in so many cheesy teenage movies but at least at my school, that social order of the lunch room was a very real thing. I would stop by her "regular table" every now and then and I can still see the way that she would always have a smile and would maintain eye contact and a smile when I was there. I can't remember any of the reasons that I had for coming up to her but it doesn't matter, I just wanted to stop by to say anything. I was NOT afraid of her because I was really high up on the extroverted social pecking order and she was living in the background, so to speak.

I never read these clues though, and never thought to ask her out in the innocent sort of way that high school kids did back then. I can only presume that her parents would have had a very big problem with her dating me though, especially since I would have returned her to her home smelling of cigarettes, which was a bad vice of mine at the time.

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I'm a big fan of anime, so something like this kind of reminds me of her back in those days.

Years later I would contact her on FB after I had already moved to SE Asia just to see what she was up to. We were both in our 30's at the time and she had gone the route that I presume someone like her would have: She got married just after college and started to have kids and live that domestic life. I was in the process of jumping around the world and doing what a lot of people would consider adventurous and exciting. We have very different lives indeed.

I kept the conversation professional but during those conversations she revealed the obvious to me about how she had a huge crush on me in high school and I revealed that I felt the same way. I can't say for certain why we never went out but there was the aforementioned aspect of us being in very different social circles as well as the fact that I was 2 years older than her. That 2 year age difference means absolutely nothing these days, but it meant a lot back in a high school that only spanned 4 years for most students' lives.

Jenny sneaks into my psyche every now and then even to this day 30 years later and she was in a dream of mine just a few nights ago. It's funny to me that she continually pops into my brain because it's not like I have a photo of her next to my bed and I obsess over here regularly. That isn't the case at all. I don't have any pictures of her at all and the idea that I have in my mind of her are her when she was 15 and I was 17. It's totally innocent stuff. I did reach out to see how she is after she popped into my dreams and thankfully her FB profile was still active. My reason for contacting her the last time I did was the same as it was this time: That she had been in my dreams. I was very careful to make sure that the words I chose were not creepy and reassured her that I wasn't attempting to flirt with her. I have only had a conversation with her twice since we left high school and looking at the timeline of our FB chat I can say that I don't dream of her often, but when I do it is impactful.

It had been nearly 10 years since the last time I reached out to her and as one might expect, a lot changes in that time period. She is still married and don't get the wrong idea... I wasn't hoping that she wouldn't be. This isn't a case of me sitting around and waiting for the one that got away to all of a sudden become available and I am not the kind of person that would ever break up a family. I also wouldn't go after someone that lives 13,000 miles away from me even if the stars did align in that way.

I think my mind is reminding me about how different things would be for me if I had decided to reach out and like I did in the dream, ask her to go to prom with me. I can kind of predict what would have happened anyway. When I graduated high school I would have moved somewhere far away and forgotten about her and she would have done the same with me. College has a way of doing that to people. That never would have worked out because I have too much wanderlust and she is very devoted to other, more serious things than I am.

It's just funny to me that something so distant would "check in" to my brain once every 5 to 10 years with such regularity only to disappear shortly thereafter.

Does something like this happen to any of you out there?