what happens when my brain is on treadmill

there are times when i run on the treadmill at the gym that i get stuck in front of an 7 foot tall window.  it's not so bad when you are watching sheets of melting snow slippity-slide off a building.  or when the parking lot is busy buzzing with cars and families and couples that you can spy on.  or when the leaves are swirling in mini tornadoes and the clouds have all of the makings of crazy dreams.

but after dark it is basically a mirror.  who wants to look at their own sweaty, crazy-haired, huffing and puffing self?  i mean sure, i can get lost in the prettiness of my clavicles for minutes at least, but a few moments into that and it is all about anything that jiggles.   

but sometimes i get lucky.  tony's reflection is in the windowy mirror too.  i get to watch him.  it is best like this, when i am watching and he doesn't know it.  otherwise he says i am creepy when i full on stalker stare.  like this, i get to stare at the determination in his eyes as he kicks the tail off 3 miles like its no big thing.  he doesn't know i am appreciating his every move.  he doesn't know that i am trying to think his thoughts. 
he doesn't know i am sometimes seeing tony-version 1994. 
the tony that was part of the us before babies and mortgages and careers and marriage.
i start to wonder if he knew then what he was getting into. did he know that the girl he asked to prom his junior year would thank her stars every night that she gets to wake up to him each morning? 

did he know her sense of fashion would only improve marginally?  did he know that the bottle red hair wouldn't last past freshman year of college?  did he know how frustrating she would be when she refused to read directions?  did he know that the daily habit of hagen daz in college would be replaced with too-many-times a week trips to vieras donuts?  and that there would be a day we would trade that bad habit for running and bike rides?

did he know that it was possible to grow together? did he know it wouldn't--couldn't-- get old?  

i'd like to think it was all a surprise. 

but part of me feels like even in that shiny blue dress with the built in necklace and under all that thick, dark brown hair that ever so slightly resembles a perched squirrel, we always knew.