Today was one of four events for my 20th reunion. I couldn’t afford the other three, but I couldn’t afford the other three, but I could afford a picnic at Dublin’s Emerald Glen Park.I’ve had twenty plus years of chronic nightmares and I believe that the nightmares all stem back to early childhood; as most do. I knew in order to overcome these nightmares I would have to face those who had haunted me for so long.I had gone to the 10 year reunion, but I didn’t last long only about 10 minutes. This time the idea was to stay put for the entire picnic. This is hard to do when your heart is racing and your heart’s pounding. I figure if Philip can overcome his agoraphobia, I can overcome this. I felt that I needed to approach Greg Pitts and Barry May to overcome the shadow. I admired these two guys in school, but I always ran. Realistically, why would I have such bad dreams? Was it because I had this huge crush on them for so long? Sounds lousy to me, but I had to say hi to be sure. So I have it in my head of what I have to do. I arrange it so that my family is there as well as Samantha, just for added safety.            When I arrive I move the car around to make it easier to unload. In the process, I find Dan Laird. Cool! He’s safe; he’s always been safe for me. I give him a lift to the picnic area. Then Dan points out Tony Bugna. Just then I realize who my shadow is, yes, Tony. From the fifth grade he picked on me, made fun of me for whatever reason, cut my hair off in the sixth grade (it just so happened that my Dad picked me up that day and told him that if he ever touched me again he’d be sorry), but the worse was that he constantly teased me for my last name …Kennedy. Then he’d ask me if my father was the president. Or he’d say that my father died. On and on it went for 8 long years. He’d get the other kids to laugh at me, especially if I cried. There was no escaping this kid! Frankly, Tony is black and was the only black kid in our class. I am surprised that he wasn’t the one who got teased; perhaps I had to be his victim so he wouldn’t be teased. He was just the precursor to all of the other men in my life.Today, Tony approached me to say “hello.” I was hoping being in the same 15’ radius would be enough. God saw it differently, I suppose. Tony turned out to be a good looking guy with caring eyes. Whether he had caring eyes or not, Angie (my little girl) was screaming and raising havoc on the inside, while Angela was trying to be calm and collective; every muscle frozen in a time capsule. There was no way I could possibly stand. My feet were as much apart of the concrete as the dirt and roots. Andrew was sitting next to me when he approached, so I grabbed a hold of his hand. I wanted Angie to somehow know that I was in my right mind by being next to someone who was safe and who love us.  Earlier, I had pointed Tony out to Brittany, when she realized who I was talking to she came right over and put her hand on my shoulder. My kids read me well.            Angela tried to hold professionalism and politeness together while Tony talked. He asked me what I was doing in life and I said I was studying for my M.F.T. license. He didn’t know what that was. Once I said what it was he said “Oh!” like he was in awe and quickly took guard. Then he asked me where I was going to school. I replied “JFK” “What, where?” “John F. Kennedy University” You know after 20 years, he still asked me if I was going there because of the name. With a Cheshire cat smile, and embers of anger emerging I said “no.” He asked me why I chose JFK and without much thought, I replied “because it’s the best and I deserve to have the best!” I wanted to smack him so hard, but it’s a little hard when your little girl has you frozen to the bench.            I hope that having the courage to talk to him after so many years will change my unconsciousness perspective and free my life of horrid nightmares of being followed and drugged in my dreams. Although, I wasn’t strong enough to walk up to him myself, God made it okay. He took care of what needed to be done. Now I doing what school has taught me to do, feel the emotion, let it out, and then write about it.            Only time will tell me how this life event worked out. The way I see it, it’s just one more step of healing a 28 year old wound.