What if we had never met? What would your life be like? Some of you might argue that, in fact, we never HAVE met, and some of you have only met me once or twice in person, but maybe the meeting of the minds that passes for frequent contact here is enough. Maybe it counts! For all the friends I’ve never met, and the ones I’ve only met a couple of times and all the ones that used to live nearby and whom I never now see, it must count for something, right?
What if you’d never come to that meeting? What if you’d never followed that link? What if you’d chosen to go to a different school or take a different class or move to another neighborhood? What if you hadn’t gotten that job at the place where I worked? What if you had, but had decided, upon a few moment’s first impression, that I wasn’t someone you wanted to get to know? Our past is full of such moments, missed connections, near collisions, glancing blows to our experience.
If what we are is the sum of our experiences, and all the things that have happened to us, then that includes all the people that we have met, that we have interacted with, and most especially it must include those that are kin, whether by relation or likemindedness. How much poorer my life would be without the people who happened upon it, who added to its breadth and depth and who enrich it daily.
The family that let me grow and experiment, the teachers that let me stretch my mind and creativity, the friends that let me dare and dream and do. If we had never met, my life would have been so different. I would never have learned HTML if I’d never met YOU. I would never have learned how unconventional I was at heart if I’d never met YOU. If YOU and I had never met, I wouldn’t have learned how to take words and twist them in my grasp until they formed a shape that reflected my heart. Every one of you has given me something, added something to me, showed me something I didn’t know, answered a need I had.
If I hadn’t trusted a friend, I would never have met Anders. If I hadn’t met Anders I would never have moved back to Europe, learned a new language, conceived and carried Martin and Karin. Imagine! I might have fallen in love with someone else and had some other life. Or I might never have met anyone whose heart matched my own and my life would have been infinitesimally less blessed.
What if YOU and I had never met? It’s unthinkable.
Big Bouquets of Belated Birthday Wishes to vember!