Kismet, the College Edition

Despite the fact that I’m running extremely late for work, I stop into the nearby Dunkin Donuts to order my usual large coffee. I step in line behind a co-worker, who is also running late, and we begin chatting. She offers me a ride when we leave the store and even though it’s only five blocks, I accept. In her car she tells me a story about running into an old friend from college just that morning. “It was the weirdest thing. I’m on the elevator, leaving my doctor’s office on the 13^th floor of the building. It stops on the 9^th floor and who gets on? This guy I was friends with in school who I haven’t seen in 10 years!”

I’m left slightly speechless as she tells me this tale, exclaiming about the odds of running into him and what a random coincidence it was that they’d be – not only in the same building – but in the same elevator at the same time.

When she and I parted ways at the elevator, I laugh. “Fate can be such a funny thing!” I call to her over my shoulder.

Later that same day I’m downtown. My mouth is numb; I’ve just left the dentist office after having an old filling replaced. I round a street corner to head back to my office and walk past a man on his cell phone. Instantly, I realize that I know him but can’t place him. Baffled, I duck into a CVS to ponder him for just a moment, running through various names and places in my head. (College? An old job? A friend’s ex?) I stand facing a row of granola bar boxes, fingers tapping my lips, mulling. The mystery man walks up next to me. “Kelli, right?”

“I’m sorry, do I know you? You look so familiar.”

“Sure, yeah. It’s Joey, your old RA.”

“Joey! RIGHT! I KNEW I knew you! I was pretty sure you were a BU face, but I was starting to doubt myself. Gosh, I haven’t seen you in what, ten years?”

And so we catch up on jobs, locations, living arrangements, and life. We part ways and I hurry back to my office, amazed at the odds that kismet would throw not one, but two 10 year, college related reunions among co-workers around in a single day.

Oh world. Oh life and the mysterious ways in which you move. These kind of moments? They make me fall in love with you all over again.