Today, I had lunch with a woman who had the largest impact on my life, with the exception of close relatives.

It was my third year of university, and I had had an epiphany of what I wanted to do with my life. Sitting a room full of sex books and toys, I finally made the connection. I wanted to learn and teach sex.

The kink in that chain, though, was that I was currently attending a university that offered absolutely nothing on the topic. Throughout the remainder of the year, however, I somehow managed to work sexual issues into many of my papers and research, even my religious studies courses.

I had decided to apply for the honours program for the following year, hoping to get the opportunity to do my own research, on my own topics. Another obstacle. A combination of a professors strike, and many nights of drinking and smoking drugs had had a rather negative impact on my GPA. A 2.5 just wouldn't cut it.

I had taken all of the courses Dr. C taught. I got her, despite the fact that she was not well liked by most of the students. She was this soft-spoken, young, highly intelligent, existential woman who I liked immediately. She appreciated my rather quirky way of looking at things, and would always ask us to question things. She was my favourite professor, and I learned a lot from her courses.

In my fourth year, I had decided to write a special topics thesis. It was like an honours program, but without the rigidity, and, of course, you didn't have the special piece of paper at the end. I met with Dr. C and clumsily talked about what I was interested in. She helped me to flesh out a proper topic. She bought text books on sexuality with her budget for me to keep, and helped me get a start on my research. Having failed statistics once, and barely passing the second time, we decided a literature review would be best. I worked hard on the thesis. It was by no means great. It wasn't very long, and wouldn't probably not hold it's own against most other thesis, but I did end up with an A. She told me she considered having it published, but lit reviews are notoriously difficult to get approved. To this day I wonder if she was just being nice.

Despite my modesty on the paper, it is something I am very proud of. I still carry copies of it around with me should I run into someone who may be interested in reading it. It is something I did, start to finish. It feels like I contributed.

So, Dr. C and I remained in contact, although sporadically. She emailed me a few days ago saying she was in town and asked if I would like to meet for lunch. I was excited to meet with her again. And nervous. It's a bit intimidating to interact with a former psychology professor, not to mention a professor who has written things you wrote years ago that probably didn't make sense. Moreover, she is quite soft spoken, and tends to stare at you with deep meaning in her eyes. I would fumble over my words because I was trying desperately to chose them wisely.

Thankfully, though, awkward pauses were few, and we talked about many different things. She's researching different facets of addiction, and I went on about Intervention. We talked about boys and parents and indian cooking. We talked about communicating with people who can't verbalize on their own, and how the word retarded, disabled, handicaped all mean the same thing, so what's the big deal? It was a great lunch.

We parted ways, her to her car, and me in search of a coffee before heading back to work. We both smiled and vowed to keep in touch.

And I only realize now that I never said thank you.