A Former Life Haunting?

I had a very brief, but very weird encounter today. I stopped in an antique store in a distant town to look for antique molding to repair my living room where the baseboard heater was removed. It was a quick side trip just to check if they had any in the size I needed and to price check it for comparison.

As I entered the store, I quickly glanced up and noticed a teenage boy looking at me and smiling. I'm estimating his age at about 14-15 years old, blonde curly hair, very cute and sweet looking. He was with others, but I wasn't paying attention and I made the quick assumption he was conversing with someone and by chance looked my way. However, for a brief second it felt like he knew me.

I have to admit, this isn't anything new. Strangers always smile at me like they know me. In grocery stores, on the street, in cities miles away. I'm not sure why. Do I walk around looking friendly? Do I look familiar? I've had people all my life tell me I look like their best friend's cousin's sister so I'm kind of used to it. Unfortunately, now I'm so anti-social it only irritates me. I brushed off this boy's familiar smile and continued through the store.

I headed back to the inner cubicles of this antique warehouse and as I'm looking at the molding, I glance around to see if there is more inventory and again, out of the corner of my eye I notice this boy purposefully watching me from a distance. The people with him were looking at something farther away and not paying attention. As our eyes met, he gave me the biggest, warmest, most loving smile like we are old friends reunited. Does he think I'm someone else? Unfortunately, it made me feel uncomfortable and after a quick inventory of the molding I made a beeline out of the store and out of town.

Much later I thought about this boy. Was he a former student? I did the math and my last teaching job was thirteen years ago so the youngest of my students would have been five years old. Could the boy have been 18 years old? Maybe. I wasn't really paying attention to him and merely glanced at him each time. He could have been older.

This is what is so scary about being a former teacher...adults don't usually age enough to become unrecognizable, but kids sure do and that always puts me at a disadvantage. I had a former sixth grader come up to me in public only a year after I had her in class and she was a foot taller, twenty pounds lighter, and totally unrecognizable looking like a young woman. It's frightening to have someone come up and say, "Miss Yatna? Do you remember me?" Just the Miss Yatna makes me jump out of my skin as not all my teaching memories are good ones, but they are always so happy to see me. They exude such warmth and love like I was the best memory of their childhood.

With former student encounters I always respond with, "OK, who are you? More than likely I know your name and remember, but you've grown up so I don't recognize you." Or I recognize their voice first and then connect the face. Or the younger kids used to just run at me and give me a hug before I even realize what was happening and I'm thinking, "Who the hell is this?" But it's been long enough none of them are young anymore. I have yet to encounter any student formerly classified as devil spawn and there were many. There are a few names that would illicit a quick, "You were such a horrible nightmare in my class."

I feel badly my anti-social behavior prevented me from taking a moment and asking the boy who he was. We were both about five hours and a state away from any school where we may have known one another so I didn't even connect him as a former student until much later. I keep remembering his smile. It was so loving like it was all he could do to keep from throwing his arms around me.

I hope I didn't hurt his feelings. I feel sad about this.

FML.