I work as a nurse practitioner in a hospital, and as anyone in healthcare can tell you, it can be a grind. Rude patients, hard cases, heavy work load. Anyway, I’m trudging through my day and I walk into a patient’s room- she’s about 75, dementia but “pleasantly confused”- and say “hello my name is usandthings and…” her face absolutely lights up, she cuts me off and says “you don’t need to introduce yourself to me, I’ve known you forever! It’s been so long!!”

She. Is. Delighted. It’s like Christmas and her birthday have come early, that’s how happy she was to see me. To be clear, I do not know this woman.

With dementia patients, it’s best to just play along so I say “wow! It has been really long, remind me where I know you from?” She looks at me like I’m being silly and smiles “San Francisco of course!!” [we are nowhere near SF]

What followed was 10 minutes of me catching up with my best friend that I’ve never met. She asked about my kids and if I’m still married to that guy… what’s his name? Oh yes! I always liked him. She was so genuinely delighted to see me and talk with me, I was bummed that I had to leave and see more (probably grumpy) patients.

I’m not working tomorrow, but I’m low key thinking of swinging by to see my new/old bestie.