Some Years Ago.

I awoke in a panic, rushed to the window, pushed my nose to the glass in desperation of a source unknown...on the other side of the glass, I found nothing familiar in the faces, the interactions, the relationships I could see. I watched and watched and watched, wanting to feel even a flicker of recognition, straining at God knows what until my jaw was clenched so tightly I thought my teeth would crack. I stood like that for a minute, or maybe it was an hour or a day or a year. I felt the sun warm my face and then watched its light slip away into the night. I laid down on my side, in my bed, still facing the window in unfounded anticipation. I laid like that until my neck cramped and my face fell asleep, until I wanted to move but could not - I couldn't turn away. Just when I knew I would lay there forever, was resigned to watching without reward, I felt a warm hand creeping around my side, then an arm slung around my waist. Startled, I turned my face from the window, shifted my weight slowly from my left side to my back, then my right side. He didn't even know; he was asleep. My urgency, my compulsion dissolved at the touch...the weight of his arm was familiar...my panic subsided...I slept.