Sometimes I’ll get a strong urge to call a friend I haven’t spoken to in a long while, and every single time they say “So funny, I was just thinking about you!”

This happens to me often and with different people. I wonder why this happens.

DH and I have only done a few yard sales. Together we designed and built a special house. Our yard sales are more like garden parties, and realtors definitely come just to get a glimpse of the house, chat, and give us their business cards. I hesitated to put a beautiful small sculpture out for the sale. It was something DH picked up along his travels but couldn’t remember much about it. At first, I just left it inside. It was mysterious. The material was polished green stone, an abstract human figure about 6 or so inches, heavy, and very cool to the touch. I tend to pop in and out of the house because I get bored or distracted during yard sales. I tentatively decided to bring the little sculpture out. Bored again and back in house.

While I was away, a woman and a young girl visited. The girl asked DH where he got the statue. He said he saw it during his travels and bought it because he’s an artist, dabbles in sculpting, and it inspired him. She told him that her uncle made the statue. She turned it over and said she knew they were his initials. She asked how much to buy it back 😌 and of course DH was in tears (big baby) and gave her the statue. In return, she gave him two bracelets that she made. The girl was an exchange student, and the woman she was with was her sponsor who is a philanthropist and heads the exchange, pays for education, housing, and takes them places that interest them. The girl wants to be an architect or interior designer or both. The woman said they were on their way to the beach and saw our funny yard sale sign. She said she had to show her the house because she’s wants to be an architect. I invited them in, iced tea/snacks, and chatted while DH was still wiping away the tears. The girl hugged him, and we had a good laugh. He is a big baby! I gave her some great design books and a few things she’d been eyeing outside. She took a bunch of pictures of the house, and a selfie with DH. I just reminded DH about it now. He welled up again. He must feel a deep connection to the man and artist. I love everything about this encounter. It feels hopeful. What’s that saying? We’re all connected by a single thread…

Anonymous wrote:I met my biological father at a football game. I didn’t have any idea what him or my mother looked like, but I was such a carbon copy of my mother, that he knew immediately and asked my name.

Holy crap

I was out in a bar in dc with an ex girlfriend. We were talking about our favorite celebrities. She said hers was Harrison Ford. Five minutes later he walked in and I nabbed him to come say hi to her. Most coincidental thing ever!

Only recently found out that an old boyfriend of mine, who I dated for a while when I lived in DC, recently moved nearby to where I live across the country - it's not LA, or SF so it's not a place where I would expect him to move to. I know we'll eventually run into each other because he's that close by. He's married to a well known television personality now.

I met my biological father at a football game. I didn’t have any idea what him or my mother looked like, but I was such a carbon copy of my mother, that he knew immediately and asked my name.

My parents bought a then new house in VA in 1988. Their next door neighbors were a significantly younger DH who hailed from the capital city of a western state where my aunt/uncle and cousins lived.

My mother asked by chance if the DH lived near/around specific HS where my 5 cousins attended. He graduated with my cousin and produced his HS yearbook! My mom only had one sibling who left their MD hometown after graduation to go out west.

I met snoop dogg twice. Once summer 1992 in Hamptons at dockers happy hour. He had no had an album yet but had a single out and was on a dr. Dre album. Pretty unknown. I was into rap I recognized him. He was by himself. We talked 20 minutes

In 2003 I happened to be in LA in a business trip and ended up at Jimmy Kimmels second show ever with snoop dog cohosting. They had an open bar for studio audience. I talked to him after wards and he is like you that white dude from the Hamptons what are you doing in LA.

He is super more famous now.

Anonymous wrote:I was backpacking in Eastern Europe during college with some "friends" who ditched me. I was in a smaller city, didn't know the language (no one spoke English there), had a train to catch and had no idea how to get back to the train station. I was standing in a park, feeling hopeless. I'm not religious but I silently just prayed to God or the Universe, please help me. I turned to my right and there was a perfectly good map of the city lying right on top of the trash can. I used it to find the train station and made it back to Paris.

Similar story. Needed another $1.00 to take the train, paniced, prayed, and found $1.00 on the ground.

When I first moved to DC I was jobhunting and worked long-term temp jobs in my field. I eventually went on to do something completely different and didn't keep in touch with any of the people from those jobs.

Ten years later I was working abroad in a totally different field and one of the people from one of the temp jobs arrived at our office for some meeting/project. We both sort of did a double take and then were like, "Did you work at ... ten years ago?" It was wild.

When I was 24 I went to Israel on my birthright trip and met a guy from Los Angeles (the trip departed from nyc and I was from dc). A few years later I was home for thanksgiving and going through old pictures in my closet. I found a picture of this guy and my sister from our trip to Barcelona. We all were at the same hostel at the same time when I was 19.

Anonymous wrote:Walking down a random street in Dublin with a friend I ran into an old colleague who was there with I presume her partner. I hadn’t seen her in probably 8 years. We had a nice chat on the street and moved on. 3 days later my friends and I were on a train from Dublin to Cork, we had a business meeting to get to. Guess who was on the v same train, in the same carriage. Bizarre.

On a family vacation to Ireland and London as a teenager, my family ran into three other families I knew. Each one in a different town, and none of us knew the other was vacationing there.

I also ran into my college roommate in multiple US cities over the course of a few years.

Anonymous wrote:I arrived in Florence for a summer semester in 1995. After unpacking my things I went out to explore. Walking by my hotel was a couple who lived a block away from my parents. They were returning home that day, so I told them to let my parents know I’d arrived safely!

I love this. I was in Florence for a summer semester in 1995, and I always said. my class would be a pristine jury for the OJ Simpson trial! Perhaps we had a beer at the same time at Il Fauno!

Anonymous wrote:Unless you are sleepwalking through life, you should be experiencing/noticing “coincidences” that are too improbable to chalk up to being mere coincidences.

https://artsofthought.com/2020/05/30/carl-jung-synchronicity/

OMG I sleepwalked (sleptwalked?) last night and just read this post just now!

In college (300+ miles away from DC), I came up to DC with a friend and we crashed at her then hook-up’s house (call him Mr.X).

Six plus years later after college, I moved up to DC and randomly at a house party met the man that would eventually become my husband.

Turns out my DH is childhood and still very good friends with Mr.X.