(Someone just pointed out that I've already used the title for this entry, a long time ago. I don't remember a rule where we can't use the same title more than once, so I'm not changing it.)

First, a story. A true story.

Back in the third grade, we had this new kid show up for school one day. Just a regular new kid, from Philadelphia. Almost immediately, I felt a connection with him. I was just positive that I knew him from somewhere and, more than that, I was sure that we were friends.

He was a nice enough guy, and we did become friends of a sort. One time I asked him if we'd ever met before. He told me that he'd lived in Philly his whole life so no, we'd never met before.

So this guy and I ended up going through the rest of our school years together, talking when we had the same classes, one year when our lockers were adjacent, but otherwise he was just a guy I knew, and I'm sure that's all I was to him.

But I never forgot that feeling I'd had when I first saw him standing next to the teacher and getting introduced to the class. That feeling that I knew him. This was no stranger at all. There was never a doubt in my mind that I'd seen this guy before.

So twenty years go past. It's June 2004 and I'm sitting at The Tilted Kilt bar in Las Vegas and end up talking with the guy sitting next to me. He also seems oddly familiar, and it turns out that there's a damn good reason this time.

It's the same guy. He's in Las Vegas for the same conference.

We get to bullshitting and catching up. The guy has had a much tougher life than I have, but he seems to be coping with it very well. At one point I tell him about how, back when he was new at my school, I'd been positive that I knew him from somewhere.

I realize that I'm starting to ramble a bit here, but I'm getting to the strange part.

It turns out that the guy hadn't lived his whole life in Philadelphia before he moved to Georgetown.

He'd actually been born in New Albany.

In the town where I was born.

In the same hospital.

On the same day.

An hour after I was born.

His family had moved East a few weeks after he was born, and so I didn't see him for another eight years, but I had seen him before. We'd been in the same maternity ward at the same time, on the day that we were born.

Pretty weird, huh?

Those feelings I had back in third grade turned out to have an explanation after all. Not the most believable one, perhaps, but one that I can accept because I have to accept it. Kind of hard to argue with the facts when they're right in front of me. I saw this kid the day I was born, and a part of me remembered him eight years later.

About a year and a half ago I saw another person. I may have mentioned her a couple of times in this 'blog. What I don't think I've mentioned here is that, by the third time I talked to her - and the first conversation of any length, I had feelings that were very similar to those I'd had about the kid in the third grade. This time, though, the feelings were much stronger, and much more specific.

I know this girl. She is important to me. More important than anyone else. Her happiness is vital to my own happiness.

I guess I'm talking about love at first sight here. Weird, because I never really believed in that, at least not before I saw her that evening at Rich O's, clutching her laptop . Meeting her is where that particular belief was born.

This was no everyday crush. This was not a crush at all. It was more, much more than that. It was everything. It was something that simply was and I had no explanation for it.

Still don't.

I remember wondering, back when I was a kid, if the guy from Philly and I had known each other in a past life or something. Not that I believed in any of that shit. It just seemed like a better explanation, or at least one that was easier to accept than the one wherein I was insane.

I still don't believe in reincarnation, but if it ever turns out to be real, then I absolutely guarantee that I knew her before. She was important to me before. More important than anyone else. Her happiness was vital to my own.

I guess some things never change.