I firmly believe that.  I want to talk for a minute about my new Guitar Buddy (I need to find a better pseudonym for him ;-).

It was several years ago when I first met him.  He was my next-door neighbor and my brother, Chaos, introduced us.  He was a good guy, we had certain things in common, but I never really got to know him all that well.  We were pleasant and friendly, but I can't say that we formed any kind of real connection.  We exchanged numbers when he moved, with the promise of "we should get together and jam sometime", but neither one of us ever called the other.  It was just one of those things...

Several months later, I ran into him downtown.  I was waiting for a bus and he had cut his hand up horribly at work.  As ridiculous as this sounds, he stood there bleeding for a while as the two of us caught up.  Once again, we left making sure we had each other's numbers and making vague statements of "we should get together sometime".  I figured I'd run into him again downtown since we worked in the same area, but after that (LOL) bloody conversation, I never saw him downtown again. 

It must have been at least a year later that I saw him again.  I was riding the bus home from my new (at the time) job and he gets on the bus!  We sat together and caught up, again, on how things were, this time we both figured that we'd be taking the same bus and could ride together, but again, I didn't see him again.  I got a carpool and started keeping really bizarre hours and we just didn't cross paths.

Well, a couple weeks ago, wouldn't you know it?  (Of course you would, otherwise what would be the point of this entry, right?)  I run into him again.  This time, though, the timing must have been right.  We were on the same bus and it turned out that he had moved right around the corner from where I live.  I told him that I had been playing at the open mics and he should come by sometime, and then I mentioned wanting to put down the guitar.  This was the day after I wrote the blog post about wanting to do that.  He got excited and said he was really interested in the idea of forming a band.

So once again, we exchange phone numbers and email addresses, setting up tentative plans to get together and try to work something out, but this time was different from all the others.  We actually followed-up on it.

Tonight will be our second time performing together and I think we're better prepared than we were last week.  We're both very excited and as committed as time allows.  We're making a go of this and looking toward the near future with ambition and dreams.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

This is something that I've had happen before.  I truly believe that there are certain people that we are destined to know, for whatever reason.  The timing isn't always right, though, so they continue to appear, periodically, until the time is right for whatever purpose to be served.  Had I not continually run into my Guitar Buddy over and over and over again, we might not have recognized each other this last time.  Even if we had, there wouldn't be that knowledge of having periodically caught up and knowing, at least vaguely, what the other one is doing with their life.

Every single time I've been a part of this phenomena, there has been *something* that eventually made that sporadic person key to some part of my life - or vice versa.  Most of the time it's been mutually beneficial, but that consistency in crossing paths only often enough to not forget them ALWAYS leads to something unexpected.

It's kind of cool to have that overall realization.  I think I've known about it for a while, but I could never actually define it.

Now I get it.

~FG };^>