Turning off the faucet I step outside of the shower onto the rug and take in the cold air. I close my eyes and wipe the water away from my eyes and open them, all of the sudden I'm back at my old place. Looking around I notice all of the things I was surrounded by, and again all the pain and stinging come back to life.

I'm lost again, it wasn’t all a dream, and it couldn’t be? Could it?

Opening the door, I see that horrible kitchen, I'm in this place again where all of my allergies are only stable because the dehumidifier is on 24 hours a day. I have a back yard, which I can’t mow very well because the landlord had never picked up the thousands upon thousands of stones before planting the grass. Where the best looking room was the living room and even that was starting to sag with the rest of the house.

The deck would be nice, though I cant afford anything to put on the deck, and this house doesn’t have a basement, it has a whole that was dug out that floods every time it rains, at which I have to always re light the pilot so I can bathe in hot water. I go to bed hearing whispers of something or somebody. I'm can hear noises that truly don’t make any sense. For example doors are shutting, and people shouting, though I am the only person here. I take in emotions from these things as well. Like a trap, or something that keeps me stuck here in this place of solitude. I don’t understand the problems im having except for what were my last couple years of existence. And now I have to somehow take it all and forget about it with the snap of a finger and then move on like hitting the restart button on a computer after it freezes up.

Back in that haze, that dark cloud, that dry summer day where honestly my two cats were what I had and the Yankees, and though my family was there, I thought I was alone all of the time. Where did my life go? Where did my wife go? Not the one that betrayed me but the one I know I'm not dreaming of? Where did my pets go, my new home, my new family, and new life? Do I honestly get up in a few hours and have to go to work back in that old dusty warehouse?

I sit down, in a chair, that I can vividly remember throwing in the trash. It smells of cat urine, because Tyler my orange cat used it to mark it’s scent, though Tyler my orange cat should be up in Chenango Forks with my in-laws. Taking a second I scan the rest of the place, seeing as how it wasn’t that big after-all. Yep it’s all there as if I never left the place. The 2 cat dishes, my white cat Toby lying on the counter, and Tyler looking for me go-figure. My last question is, what day is it, what year is it, it cannot be May of 2006, Lets flip on the TV, I mean the cable is past due and about to be shut off, so lets see what day it truly is.

Ok, so Giambi’s playing for the Yanks, so it’s not 2009. Wait, that’s the old park, they aren’t even talking about a new park being built yet. Sheffield is still in pinstripes, that’s a plus, I know that its 2006 now. And if I'm correct, they are going to lose this game by a score of 6-1, Because Randy Johnson’s pitching and Oakland really wasn’t that bad. I don’t have to watch the rest, I already know they lose. A smart person would figure another thing out, I could go nuts place bets on a super bowl, or lottery or anything right now, but I don’t want to, I want this to be just a dream, I want this memory to be erased, or at least be able to shut my eyes, wake up and then be back the way its supposed to be.

Looking up at the clock it’s 8:38pm, day is quickly become night, which for some reason makes me feel more uncomfortable in this house, I mean you’d think I’d be used to it, but truly I know that it’s been 3 years since I Left this house! What am I doing back in it? Do I truly have to re-live everyday in and out to figure out how to get back to being married to the one I Love? Am I Going to get stupid drunk every night starting May 25th, thinking that I’ll never be happy again and I should just give up on myself? Damn! I'm hungry! I say damn! Because I know that there is nothing to eat in the cupboards. I'll get up and look anyways. Yep nothing, a few boxes of macaroni, some old bread in the fridge, I can make some coffee! I have plenty of that. Well, I’ll just go see if my parents have anything good to eat.

Venturing outside, The Monte, sitting there all nice and shiny in the driveway. If sights and smells can bring back memories, imagine how weird I feel right now with this deja-vu. This is so messed up, here I go, yep Old McDonald’s still up and running, still driving that building also is no longer there, a few feet down the road, wow that gas station is now up and running again. Hmm, Fun times; let’s go drive to my old house. Yep, both my brothers still at home, Josh hasn’t popped the question yet, he will this Christmas though. Maybe I should tell my mom that she will have hardwood floors and a brand new kitchen floor and a new garage door in 3 years, and Josh will have bought a house in Kirkwood, married, heather, and I also remarried, to a girl that will make her proud to say I'm her son? Maybe I should tell her all of the things …. ... Or maybe I shouldn’t, because what If I can’t get back to that moment in time.

My life, where I'm happy, where my job is helping kids at a high school that my wife and mother graduated from. Where it’s June of 2009, not May of 2006. Where the Yankees have a prayer in winning another world series. Where all my stresses financially are finally over with. Where I have a Great Dane named Chloe and 4, yes 4 Ferrets named, Boog, Tuck, Mush, and Meek. Where I own my home in Port Crane, I have new grandparents that love me for who I am, and In-laws that prove to me they also care about me. I drive a PT cruiser; I’ve been to Tennessee and loved it! And Virginia Beach and hated it. I’ve gotten bigger! Look like I eat more now, because there is food in the fridge, I'm no longer this 145lb small guy, I'm 190 and healthy! I'm completely the opposite of where I was “then”. Which is now.

I call up my buddy Tino, let him know where I am, and play a game of wiffleball outside of my parents house after I eat. I haven’t done this in years, but Tino was talking to me about how we played just yesterday afternoon. He starts talking about some other things, and thank god for my memory or I’d really have no idea what was going on.

I'd try to tell him that he’s going to meet a girl named Ashley through me in the future and to not date her, but even if there was a shirt Ashley was wearing that said “Hi Tino, we aren’t good for each other” he’d still be attracted to her and out for count, and then he’d still follow his own path. I'd try to let him know that 3 years from now he’ll be my best man at a real wedding and he wouldn’t believe me. Especially if I told him that a month and 2 weeks from the time we were talking that the girl I meet downtown, drunk, at a bar, when he drops me off at midnight, is going to be the one I marry and plan to have a family with, and be happy with! He’d laugh his ass off. So basically I continue to talk about how cool it would be to see Texiera in Pinstripes, and I can’t wait for the Yankees to get smart and realize how good CC Sabathia is and how he’d be great for the Yanks.

Of course he has no idea that in my Life this is already happening, that the things I saying to him about the Yanks have happened. I have to be careful though I can't let him know anything that I know, but I can play on sentences like that and chuckle under my breathe as I throw a plastic two-seemed fast ball right by him. The pitch moves right past the left on the outside corner every time.

Believe it or not these wiffleball games can get pretty intense we always competed and played hard till we got tired no matter what we were doing. And in the hot sun this was a way to get a workout. So Obviously I was headed home to go into what I’ve realized is like black hole. So I head on home, to my crappy rented house that I was paying way too much for, and to this day (I don’t care that I stiffed my landlord for the last months rent) and I head into the bathroom and take a shower, I turn off the faucet, and open the sliding glass door. I know I'm thinking nothing too important, just seemed natural to just think that this was normal. As I head out onto the cold floor of my bathroom, I take in something that I don’t remember ever smelling, something awful, but it makes me shut my eyes and cough real bad. I start to rub my eyes, and I'm freezing! And have a towel wrapped around me, and laying in a heap next to my sink. But wait. . .

If I'm laying in a heap by my sink, then this must mean I'm back! Because in my old place it wasn’t in front of the shower what so ever it was up and too the left. So I stand up, holding my head, and hear mumbling, which is a combination of My wife telling me I slipped and hit my head on the sink getting out of the shower, and my dog licking my face. I really didn’t catch what was said but I understood what had happened. Looking into the mirror I notice I'm a mess!, Dog hair on me from the rug, and I have a goose egg the size of my ear on my forehead. But, Melissa and Chloe are right there, my wife and my Great Dane.

In pain, I realize that everything is back to way it should be. Thinking that a scent sent my brain into thinking I was back in 2006, was really my brain reliving old memories from before, and was just because the impact was so heavy that it was just my bodies defense mechanism making sure I stay alive during this traumatic experience.

Wow, am I ever happy, to be back, I don’t care about the egg growing on my face, I don’t care that I need to shower again, I'm just happy I'm not back in that old hell I call my life 3 years ago. Realizing how good I have it now with Melissa and realizing how things have changed, replaying events over and over in my mind, I cant believe that I'm so Lucky to be with her and how good things have turned out.

Maybe that slip, and fall back into time was good for me, because it made me realize what was truly important and how in an instance you can realize how time can fly by. And realizing now that, literally what I'm living now is a dream, but it’s a dream come true. From where I was 3 years ago to now, If I were to tell my old self that I’d be happily married, with a dog and 4 ferrets, and my own place where friends come over for barbecues and hang out by a fire, I would of laughed at my own self.

It's funny how things work, how everything the last 3 years have flown by so fast, and how in just a blink, everything can change . . .