I’m a sucker for coincidences. Nothing fuels my spirit quite like the rarity and uncanniness of an unlikely situation. I’m also a very lazy person and the great thing about coincidences is that they just happen without you having to do anything. Little gifts from a greater force that don’t require any planning on your part. Some may put smiles on our face while others may lead us to shake our fists at the sky and plead ‘why me?!??’ And sometimes they are so out of this world that you realize how small it actually is.
Coincidences can happen on a small scale. You know, the ones where you’re humming a song while getting ready one morning and right when you turn on your car engine, the radio starts blaring that very song. Or the more freaky ones where you’re watching a spooky paranormal movie and you hear some unexplained rustling in the kitchen...Of course, how much we read into these coincidences is up to us. We may dismiss them as little nothings, accidents that ‘psssh, obviously don’t mean anything’. And if you're like me you’ll insist that the ones in your favor are ‘total signs from the universe!’, and you'll completely ignore the ones that tell you ‘it’s simply not meant to be’ OR that scare the crap out of you like that unexplained rustling.
One of the biggest coincidences of my life spent years in hiding, dormant, waiting for the right moment to catch me by surprise. It surfaced during my senior year when I got to travel to London and Paris with a handful of my fellow classmates. It wasn’t until I traveled miles over the ocean to another country that I realized that one of my classmates, Jennifer, had gone to the same preschool as me, which is about 5 states away from where we were both currently living. With eyes wide open our disbelief grew as we first confirmed having the same preschool teacher, then agreed on the name of our preschool, and later even recalling the grassy green hill behind the playground. We both laughed in complete shock at how crazy it was that our paths crossed at 4 years old and again in high school. Visiting ‘It’s a Small World’ in Disneyland Paris made the whole thing so much more surreal. Here we were miles away from home, in a city that one may only get to visit once in a lifetime, discovering how small the world truly is. That the world is full of domino effects and chain reactions (which is why we have to be super careful when traveling back in time). One little decision you make can change the entire course of your future.
I’ve heard people say that coincidences are the universe’s way of letting us know that we are on the right path. Little checkpoints that a greater force places in our lives to let us know that where we are is where we need to be in that moment.
Something that got me thinking even more about the beauty of coincidences, was a movie I recently rewatched called, The Giant Mechanical Man. *I’m not gonna spoil the movie or anything but there may be some details here that you might not want given away if you plan to watch the movie, so read at your own discretion* The film follows two people: Tim and Janice. Tim, played by Chris Messina, makes a living by painting his face silver and blue to resemble a giant mechanical man and entertain passersby in the city.
The movie then introduces Janice, played by Jenna Fischer, who is on the verge of losing her apartment and in desperate search of a job. Janice has seen the giant mechanical man around the city, and later recognizes him in an interview on television. In his interview, Tim talks about how the routines of life can lead you to feel like you're alone, crazy, and like you have no idea what you're doing, words to which Janice immediately relates to. Coincidentally, Janice and Tim both land jobs at the zoo. Janice meets Tim, but has no idea that he is the giant mechanical man who she made a connection with earlier in the film. Tim does not reveal to Janice that he is in fact the giant mechanical man, but nonetheless these two lost souls fall in love.
When I saw this movie for the first time last year, I fell in love with it because I too thought frequently about how I have absolutely no idea what I should do with my life, and how lonely the world can seem while feeling that lost. This year, although I wouldn't say I have all the answers yet, it resonated with me in a different way. It made me think about the beauty of coincidences. How the world can seem so much smaller, yet so much bigger when two parallel lines finally meet at one point. Although coincidences may remind us how small we are in the grand scheme of things, they can also make you see the world as a place full of possibility. Coincidences may be rare, but when they happen, they reinforce the magic that happens when paths cross, when the seeds that the universe or some greater being scattered across your timeline finally begin to sprout. Coincidences are not just about 2 people meeting and falling in love. They most definitely can be, but more so they are about the rare and simultaneous meeting of any two things. Two people, a person and a song, a person and a few words, a person and a strange occurrence, a person and an opportunity…
Really, the only downside to coincidences, especially for a lazy person like me, is that we can’t live our lives waiting for them. We can’t just walk blindly and hope that the stars will happen to align in our favor. We must adopt the role as forces of nature and forge our own paths, creating our own fate, and trust that we’ll lead ourselves in the right direction, toward the right places, things, and people.
Hoping your week is filled with many cool coincidences,
Kristal :-)
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