After weeks of trying to hook up with my friend Chrissy, I finally caught her home the other day and got the chance to talk to her one-on-one for a few minutes. Sadly, she’s going through a busy time right now, but at least I was able to give her my phone number and we promised to get together again when things calm down.
Mean time, I’m still boggled by our running into each other after all this time, and playing with those questions I wrote about ‘coincidence’ and ‘fate’…
You see, Chrissy and I met almost 30 years ago at a high school in the Ottawa Valley and only hung out until she went away to college in the late ’80’s. Then, despite my trying to find her, we didn’t see or hear from each other until 2 years ago when we ran met again in the Niagara area.
Now, ‘coincidence’ alone could easily explain this meeting because, sinse moving here in the late ’90’s, I’ve talked to enough people who’ve lived in – or have family in – ‘the Valley’ to know economics was often a big factor in their relocating to the Golden Horse Shoe. When you consider, too, that it was motocycles that sort of brought us together, it doesn’t seem like a ‘big stretch’ for us to have met at an event that was centred around bikes.
Of course, ‘luck’ or ‘chance’ is likely to blame for our both having bought houses in the Niagara Region and having slightly over-lapping social circles. Even my getting pushed into using the same site my computer iliterate BF used wasn’t a ‘biggy’ because the ebb and flow of media popularity could easily account for that.
When I think about the fact that I swore off bikes (and bikers) ages ago, that Chrissy and I bought houses on the same block, and that we’ve been unwitting neighbours for 3 or 4 years, though, I tend to think we’re pushing the boundaries of ‘probability’.
It’s also tempting to consider whether ‘karma’ or something similar might have affected our connection because when I recall how easily we slipped in and out of each other’s lives – without judgement or complications with other relationships – I can almost see there having been some other-life connection. Chrissy and I have also both been through some similar ‘crap’ with family, and life in general, so it isn’t unthinkable that we’d be drawn to each other, perhaps by some subconscious recognition of each other’s emotional or mental states, or by some need to help or get help from each other.
Fans of ‘The Secret‘ might also associate our attraction with the possibility of some ‘magnitism’ (born of ‘physics’ or ‘psychics’…?) between us, or the potential for our words and thoughts to have made it possible for us to reconect. After all, I have been talking about Chrissy and my desire to find her for nearly 30 years!
It’s also worth noting that, while talking on the phone shortly after we met, my BF mentioned his bike, and I recalled having seen him (years prior) cruising ‘The Lane’ in the Falls on a different machine. At that moment, I specifically remembered thinking ‘not my type’… ‘too much trouble’… and ‘nice pipes…!’ So, for my 1st online message to him to have been ‘nice pipes’ (and for that to have led to us being in a relationship, etc.) and for him to have caused me so much ‘trouble’ of exactly the sort I’d imagined seems odd, indeed.
I do, however, acknowledge the likelyhood that my attraction to him, in both instances, might have been based in some deep-seated need in me or some architypical image of the sort of man I’m attracted to. I’ve also considered Carl Jung’s theory of ‘synchronicity‘ which is, in essence (and to quote Wikipedia)… “the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner. ”
Thus, my moving to Niagara because I had a familial and emotional connection to both towns we’ve lived in and Christine’s employment and a relational connections to the same, as well as our both having interest in bikes might have been all that was needed to ‘synch’ us up.
Finally, ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’ may also be to blame for the connections we’ve all made, but I tend to believe that ‘choice’ affects our life paths far more than some ‘higher power’ or cosmic predetermination, and that we can live whole lives without even being aware of any faitful forces.
Still, I can’t help feeling that Chrissy, my BF, our mutual friends, and I are all ‘suposed’ to be here and connected, and being anxious to see what lessons I take from it all. More than anything, though, I miss the easy-going acceptance and fun that Chrissy and I shared, and just hope that’ll be a constant in our lives.
