So, as I was out trolling the Chicago theatre scene on Saturday, I had an odd and quite pleasant surprise. I walked out to grab a smoke during intermission, and who did I see but Kevin! Now, for those of you not in the know, Kevin was my bestest friend from pre-school through Jr. High. We went to different High Schools, but continued to keep in touch. Once we started college we completely fell out of each others worlds. Now, almost a dozen years and several hundred miles later, he just happened to be at the same theatre I was at! Small world, eh? We chatted and exchanged email addresses and we’re meeting for drinks this week.
When I finished Senior at High School, I travelled to university and lost track of most of my senior year friends.
It was bizarre but after several years of silence 2 of my dearest old friends both tracked me down and rang me on the same day to catch up.
All three of us had hung out together constantly at school so it was like a big reunion that week when I arranged for all of us to meet on the same day (each friends thought they were only catching up with me).
About three years back, I was waiting in line at a supermarket here in Los Angeles. I happened to be wearing a Baltimore Orioles shirt. A woman got in line behind me and pointed out the shirt and asked if I was from Baltimore. I told her I was. She said she was from Randallstown, a suburb of Baltimore, which is the same smallish town I grew up in. As soon as she told me her first name, I knew exactly who she was. We’d gone to Jr. High and High School together! We weren’t good friends or anything, just had some classes together. I’d actually had a small crush on her in jr. high!
We exchanged phone #s and called each other a couple of times, but eventually fell back out of touch. Some things are meant to be, and others aren’t.
The part that always gets me, is that if I hadn’t happened to have been wearing that Orioles shirt (which I don’t wear that often), a person I’d gone to school with 3000 miles away would have been right behind me in line at Vons, and I’d never have known it. Makes you wonder how many odd things like that happen that we never know about…
I was good friends with a guy named Eric during grade school, but he moved to a different part of town and we lost track of each other in high school.
15 years later (since we last saw each other, not since graduation), I’m working a late shift at work and go outside for a smoke. Sure enough, there’s Eric outside smoking too. We’d both been working for AT&T in the same building for the past 8 months, but because I work days and he works nights, we hadn’t seen each other.