I don’t mean did you meet a sibling or a cousin on the street or someplace that you didn’t know was in town. What I mean is have you ever looked into the face of someone and said, “you’re the person people tell me I look like.”

It’s happened to me twice. Once when I was still in high school, I was on the bus, which was unusual for me as I normally walked to save money to buy books. i was on the bus and happened to look up and across from me was a face so similar to mine, I could only stare. She stared back and we both said to each other that people kept saying they knew someone that looked like me.

We went to separate high schools that were down the street from each other. She went to the Catholic school and I attended the public high school. She was a grade behind. The second strange thing was, when we talked about our siblings, one of her brothers knew my youngest brother, but they didn’t look alike.

The third weird thing was she lived around the corner. The street I lived on backed onto the neighbors’ yards, which in turn edged a nature area. The side of the street my parent’s house was on, spanned the length of three blocks because of that undeveloped land. So around the corner wasn’t in close proximity, but her parents’ property also edged up to part of that land around the corner.

We never became friends, but we did talk when we’d meet on the bus which wasn’t often. The only time I rode was when there was heavy rain or snow. We’d talk about classes we had – I had French and German; she had Italian. I was active in Theater and she did other things. I can’t even remember her name.

The second time I saw my face was today. I was on YouTube and a video was in my feed from someone I didn’t follow. When the video loaded, it was like looking in a mirror. I took a screenshot and sent to two friends with the caption “I just saw my face.” They agreed the woman looks a lot like me. I wonder if she’s the girl from the bus from 60 years ago.