Apparently I wrote this in June but never posted it. Well, better late than never! LOL.
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I touched on this topic briefly in a previous post, "Chance Run-ins," but I always am amazed at the little coincidences that show me what a small world this big world is. On my daughter's 8th birthday, there was more than one incidence that brought this to my mind.
The first incident was that I was talking to one of my Girl Scout co-leaders, and she mentioned that she used to work at the breast-feeding store that was close to our old house in another suburb, though still on this general side of town. I used to go to this store when my daughter was a baby. I only actually bought stuff a couple times, but I frequently went in to use the scale to weigh my daughter. This was at the same time my co-leader worked there. Not only that, but the mother of one of my daughter's classmates worked there at the same time, and I sort of remember someone fitting her description working there.
The second thing was a run-in at a restaurant. Early in the day we were at the mall for my daughter to get her ears pierced. A mother and her two daughters stopped to watch. When we went to Black Angus for dinner, the same family was sitting a couple tables away from us. They saw us returning from the bathroom and after both of our tables got birthday songs sung at them, the mother came over to ask if my daughter was the same girl she saw at the mall and to tell her how brave she was. When we left the restaurant, we discovered we were parked next to one another--crazy, isn't it?
Whenever I discover these kinds of coincidences, I have to wonder if they mean something or if they truly are just coincidence. After dinner, I couldn't help thinking back to other crazy coincidences in my life such as seeing a former classmate from Minnesota in a Florida airport or running into friends who lived near us at a mall an hour away from the house or meeting a girl in college who stayed at the same hotel in St. Thomas, VI, as I did approximately the same year as I went there. It truly is amazing that in such a big world, we can have these sort of things happening.
What about you? Have you ever had "small world" moments that made you wonder what it all means?
I've had them a lot. Not sure I can remember so many of them, but I ran into someone once in a hotel lobby in Paris the summer after high school graduation who I had seen previously at the Carolina Camp weekend orientation thing at USC about a month prior. I used to bross paths with this guy when in lived in Atlanta that I had known through a co-worker when I was in Columbia. Saw him in a grocery store and emailed the coworker to ask if it was possible that it was the same guy, then ended up seeing him when I'd be driving around parts of ATL. We ended up getting together for lunch, but I never saw him again after that. I often thing those things do mean something, but I've never figured out just what! And I've never crossed paths with someone multiple times and ultimately had them remain in my life for any reason.
ReplyDeleteI always think they must mean something, too, but often, it seems like they don't in the long-run. But, you never know--maybe some meaning will appear to me later in life. :)
DeleteI expect that my GS co-leader and the other woman from the breast-feeding store are here (in my life) for a while, though, and I'm glad of that, because they're great people!