Karma

Well... I was something of a dork earlier this week, so I guess I had this one coming.

Walking through Target, doing our normal shopping routine, we encountered Erin Sweeney and her fiance in the checkout line. She sighted me coming and hailed me. What can one do at that point? I looked right at her, it wasn't like I could pretend I didn't see her. So we stopped and had a conversation that lasted about one minute.

Longest minute of my life.

Let me outline it for you: There is Erin. She looks like she's had nothing but hard living since the last time I saw her, standing there with her fiance, and here I am with my wife. Awkward doesn't begin to describe this. It's the kind of meeting you pray will never happen but you know it eventually will; the Law of Averages outlines how the odds crop up the longer you go without it happening.

For the last five (almost six) years of knowing Jessica, I've done nothing but verbally flail this woman at every opportunity. She is, centrally, the reason my life took such a long time to fix. She put me into a debt that nearly lasted me a decade. She stole my identity and wrecked my credit. She caused tension between my friends and caused my parents to send me to counseling. And here she was flagging me down in the middle of Target.

My stress level is now unbelievably as a result. I feel like someone's been pounding me in the gut for an hour.