It was a stinking hot day in Perth in 2001, as I wandered up to the shop in the caravan park where we were staying, to buy a bottle of milk. We’d been on the road, travelling Australia, for nearly 6 months by that point.
I was tired, dirty, sweaty and had chucked on a grotty old pair of shorts and a top. My hair was a mess and there was no point wearing makeup because it would have just melted off. But I didn’t really mind. It wasn’t as if I was going to see anybody I knew – I was over 4000 kilometres from home, after all!
You guessed it.
Just in front of the shop I bumped into a girl we knew.
It was weird how our paths kept crossing.
The hubster first met her – they caught the same bus for years, although they went to different high schools.
Then I met her, some years later, when I got a job at the office she worked at.
Fast forward a few years, and she and her husband built a house literally around the corner from ours!
They’d then sold and moved on, so it had been some time since we’d seen each other.
But now, here we both were. Both travelling Australia in a caravan with our families. Both staying in the same tourist park in Perth. Both had a son and a daughter. Both just happened to need milk from the corner shop at the same time.
Despite my embarrassment over looking really grubby, come to think of it, she looked much the same. Besides, it was so nice to see a familiar face, and when our daughter turned 5 a few days later, we even held a little party for her and knew some kids to invite!
You’d think after this long-running string of coincidences, we’d be best-est buds. The reality is, we haven’t seen them since then. We must be due to have another chance encounter soon – maybe next year when we are in Europe for our silver wedding anniversary?!
Is there somebody in your life that you just keep crossing paths with?!
How strange is that we run into people we know in the most unusual places. We have ran into people at LA airport, in the supermarket in Broome, WA and even on the ski slopes in NZ! The world is such a big place and it is a miracle that this happens.
Actually you’re right, we bumped into people we knew on our honeymoon in the Whitsundays, and also on our first cruise to Noumea and Vanuatu. I wonder who we will see when we are in Europe next year? 😉
Love it. You never know you may just be right about your next encounter. Your spirits seem to gravitate to each other.
I have this odd way of never cross paths with people I cut ties with. I guess its a good thing but then every couple of years I wonder where they are. I guess the unknown is mysterious and I’m a nosey by nature. I’m also bad with names so when I do run into people I havent seen in years eg. ex colleagues, I’m terrible at remembering their name.
That’s a very good thing – it’d be pretty uncomfortable to bump into folk you no longer want in your life!
I keep running into someone I don’t want to run into, does that count? Haha. Won’t tell that story, but I am guessing maybe it’s some kind of karmic fate where I’m supposed to learn something each time! We live in a place where the odds of knowing someone EVERY time you leave home are HIGH. There are hundreds of thousands of people that live in my home town, but it’s like there’s only 2 degrees of separation, I swear! Once I took my husband on a surprise date for his birthday (out of town) and we still ran into another couple we know – so nice to see them, but instantly less romantic haha.
I know when my parents travel they’ve had some weird coincidental meetings.
LOL sounds like us on our honeymoon, bumped into another couple we knew!
Being that you’ve written about her now, maybe there is a feeling in your ‘bones’ that you will cross paths again soon. I am so curious to know where!
I will let you know if/when it happens! 😉
It’s amazing isn’t just how small our world sometimes seems to be. I’m often taken by surprise by the people that come back into our lives at what is sometimes the most unlikely times and places!
I know exactly what you’re talking about Janet. There are certain people in my life that just seem to pop up again and again. It’s weird. We aren’t good friends but they just keep turning up in odd places. Maybe they’re friends from a previous life or something!
Sometimes I wish we were friends with people like that, it’d make life a lot easier. Instead most of my friends live far away!