Funny how I wrote this entry 3 years ago and now I talk to this fool damn near every day. I was being lazy a few minutes ago, trying to find something from my archives to post for today while simultaneously telling her that she wasn’t gonna keep me up all night with her foolishness and ran across this….
~from the July 2006 archives~

you ever have people in your life that always cross your path at different points throughout your lifetime…not in any major way, but so much that you know that there’s some kind of reason that they’re there?

maybe this post should be in my other blog, but i believe in reincarnation and past lives. there are people that i come across in my life that i know i’ve encountered before – people that i have unfinished business with, people that i make amends with in this life because of something that’ s happened in the past, people that i’ve loved, even people that are meant to guide me. and then there are people that are just there. they play roles in different parts at various points in my life, like i said-not major roles, but nonetheless they’re always there.

take my girl, sheeky, for example. sheek is my line sister. now, she’s not one of my closest friends. in fact, i really can’t tell you too much about her other than the things that i’ve learned from being her linesister for the past 10 years. but i knew her even when i didn’t know her…feel me?

see, i first met her when i was in elementary school. we rode the same school bus -#226 – and let me tell you how she died laughing when i reminded her of that yesterday ’cause she’d forgotten all about that. sheek was a couple of grades ahead of me, so i didn’t know her that well…other than the fact that she rode my bus…

…that is, until we got to high school. her senior year and my sophomore year, we both auditioned for and made the drill team/dance line. we became friends that year, always spoke in the halls, occasionally ate lunch together, attended the same parties, but still nothing major…..

…that is, until i got to college. i saw her once, maybe twice on campus my freshman year. it was cool to see an atlien on famu’s campus, but she was a business major and i was an education major, so we still didn’t bond…

….that is, until out of the 600+ girls that turned in application packets, she and i were two of the 45 that were chosen. and now, we speak frequently – especially since she moved back to atlanta a couple of years ago.

and now, i realize that i’ve always “recognized” her, even when we were practically strangers. for some reason her eyes are familiar to me and i can’t figure out why. oddly enough, when i was going thru one of my old yearbooks from her graduation year, i noticed that the word “SISTER” is written in my handwriting above her cap&gown picture…but i don’t remember ever writing it. and why would i? i didn’t really know her well….

…and then one day, i was looking at a picture that’s been on my mom’s piano in her house for decades. it’s a group picture taken at a piano recital given by this lady who taught children from all over the city. the lady gave each of us invidual lessons at her house and the students had never seen each other before until the day of the recital.

in the picture, i’m about seven years old and i’m sitting in a chair on the bottom row and guess who’s standing directly above me smiling? you guessed it. a nine-year old sheeky. and there are hundreds of pictures of us over the years as drill team members in 1991, as line sisters and even as adults in our 20′s and 30′s where we end up in the same position….

…me in the bottom row and she directly above me, as if we’ve been doing this for centuries and just automatically fall into place comfortably.