How I Met My Other

oors. I’d never considered the true importance of a simple door—wood or metal, screen or glass. What are doors used for? Letting in or letting out. Science fiction allows that black holes are doors to other worlds. Poets write that eyes are the door to the soul (okay, I took literary liberty here). And carpenters build doors to the future.

Turns out, my own future hinged on opening a door.

Ever since I was old enough to know boys were different from girls, I’ve swooned over blond, blue-eyed guys. The rest of the body needed to be pleasing, but something about blond hair and blue eyes drew me in. What it was exactly, I couldn’t say. Maybe the color of their locks reminded me of sunshine. Possibly the scintillating eyes were reminiscent of bottomless oceans. Maybe, just maybe, it was because I wasn’t.

On my first driver’s license, my eyes were hazel. A slightly nutty, nondescript word I didn’t like the sound of. On the following licenses they were green. More enticing. And my hair? Definitely not blonde. Though I started life as a platinum, by elementary school it had darkened to a mundane brown—certainly nothing to flaunt.

So, I mentally stalked almost every blond, blue-eyed fella I spotted, at least the ones within my age range and tall like my dad at a full six feet. I’d giggle when they looked my way, my stomach fluttering. And those guys on television? Oh my. I sat glued to the screen wishing, hoping, somehow they’d teleport into my house and sweep me off my feet as I ran my fingers through their golden tresses. I’d peer into their baby blues, floating in the pool of possibilities. I’d find my guy, I was sure.