I sat in the old kitchen chair, otherwise placed in the bedroom only to put clothes on, but not this morning. At this moment it served as my watchtower, and I felt good about. As I sipped my morning coffee, dressed only in my navyblue, worn-out robe, my eyes were steadily fixed on the right side of my bed. I saw her long, dark hair spread out on the pillow, and her eyes seemed to be smiling, although I couldn’t be sure, because most of her face was covered by a pillow. Not that it mattered, I knew almost every detail of her beautiful face, the shape of her nose, the arch on her upper lip, the oh so visible cheekbones… As I let that thought pass through my system, it became perfectly clear, what I had suspected for some time now: I was in love. As it dawned upon me I almost fell out of the chair, and I felt dizzy for a moment and placed my coffee cup on the floor beneath me. She made a little noise, kind of a giggle, just enough to draw my attention back to her. Or maybe to remind me how happy she made me. As I looked at her face, which was revealed now as the pillow had moved enough to let me see the mouth I spent most of my time longing for nowadays. I watched as her breath passed through her soft lips, for a moment I imagined I saw it in shape of a little cloud, but realized I probably was going nuts, and pushed that thought aside. I got up, thinking I should let her sleep for a while longer. Hadn’t been much of that lately. The funny thing about that, was that even though I was twice her age, I was the one who felt no need or desire to sleep since we met. I was caught in a dreamzone, that aloud me to be a passionate lover at night, and a more creative writer than I had ever been before. I had even stopped drinking, didn’t seem to be any need for that anymore. I didn’t know what had happened to me, just knew that I liked it. Very much. As I told Harry, my old friend down at the book club, he just laughed out loud and turned to me and said: “Jimmy, old friend, congratulations!”

“For what?” I said.

“Don’t you understand? Well let me spell it out for you: You, my dear friend, are in love!”

He grinned at, me showing most of his coffee stained teeth, probably thoroughly amused at my facial expression. I shook my head in disbelief. But at the same time I felt unsure, and if there was no truth to Harrys claim, I would had protested right away. I knew it, and he knew it. I looked at him with probably more than a little fear in my eyes, and he put his hand on my shoulder, shaking me gently with a kind smile shaping his lips.

“Don’t look so sad my friend. You should be happy! For Gods sake, isn’t that what every body’s looking for, our every day search?  Searching for that special one, our soul mate?” Harrys voice went up a couple of notes as he spoke more passionate.

“Yeah, but-“

“Yeah but what?” Harry shot down my lame attempt to get out of the obvious. “I have known you for a long time, and have been a personal witness to many of your numerous attempts to find just that, the special one. But no one has qualified before, always some part missing in the perfect puzzle, right?”

I could only nod my head in a silent salute to his wise conclusion. For sure I had tried my way through a large amount of a variety of women, but no one had filled the shoes I carried only inside my mind. The shoes that I once watched walk out of my life, never to return. And like in the fairytale I had measured every woman against that person since then. The shoe hadn’t fitted anyone, not until now as Harry so brilliantly displayed before me. Did it scare me? Hell yeah! So much I didn’t have a clue what to do.