Honestly…it really is. full of stranger things.
Not stranger thing like the show—stranger things that are unexpected, unusual but always interesting.
Honestly, my life has been full of them and I’m kinda waiting for the next one.
I need one.
I chalk strange coincidences up to God and his ultimate plan.
Which is sometimes easy to do years down the line: Hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20.
For example:
A couple of years ago, I had had a falling out with some friends. It doesn’t matter why and no one was to blame, it just happened. I think we were all in the throws of a transition and the fallout was what we needed to move each of us out of our comfort zone and into the next phase of our lives.
In the midst of the fallout, was my birthday.
My 31st birthday…not a big one, but it was to me. I had spent a hard year and a half losing weight and I was really in a place where I felt good . And I wanted to go out and celebrate. However, the falling out had left me with few going out friends.
So what did I do…I called a radio station.
WHAT?
Well, I did. I don’t know why.
It was completely out of character for me to do that, but something God told me to make the call that morning.
So, I blindly followed.
Again, not something I usually do, but I did and it set me on a course that would change my life.
You should ALWAYS blindly follow what God says…God’s plans are so complicated and taking that first step in blind faith sets off a chain you don’t expect…it’s basically Freakonomics. Actually, that whole movement should have been called God-onomics!
Anyway…the DJ put me on the air saying something like:
“My 31st birthday is this weekend and I have no one to go out with. What should I do?”
Now, this wasn’t a Dear Abby kinda morning show. This is pop music and stupid silly bits kinda morning show.
But people called in and said they’d go out. Now, to a cautious person this is a scary proposal. I mean, I live in the midwest and most midwesterners are nice/kind but…you never know.
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| Melissa, Me and the other random girl who showed up-but didn’t stick around. |
They hooked me up with one of the callers: Melissa and two or three other girls—only one other of which came out. But Melissa and I…instant sisters separated at birth.
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| Most of the Crew out blowing. |
And that course changed both of our worlds. We hung out a lot.
Met men. Broke up with men.
Made new female friends.
Stayed friends with some of the men we dated and pulled everyone together to form a little crew… a dysfunctional family .
We all loved each other.
I married one of the men from that group and we all stood my Melissa as she ran into and fell back in love with a guy she had know since middle school.
That one ‘Stranger Thing’ changed my life, from which it has yet to recover and sometimes can’t even believe it all happened.
Melissa moved away shortly after getting married—that middle school guy was now a Navy man and there is not staying in one place for long with a Navy man. Not to mention, no midwest living— land-locked states are not Navy friendly.
And our crew broke up.
We were all again, in the throws of life changes, but this time…the straw that broke that camels back was me.
And I know why…I have a tendency to tell people the things they don’t want to hear, but they know. Deep down— in places they refuse to acknowledge.
And that has a tendency to break things up/make things awkward…sometimes for years.
It is worth mentioning, I have been correct everytime I have spoken out. I’m not saying that to sound superior, but I’m just saying it to show that you might think I’m a bitch for speaking out, but I’m not. I just somehow know—another stranger thing perhaps.
I have been thinking about these people a lot lately. Maybe it’s the time of year or the things that are going on right now…I don’t know. Maybe I’m feeling lonely and I need the companionship and the drama that will inevitably come. Just typing that has brought a tear to my eye.
The thing is: I keep thinking that maybe the next stranger thing is for me to extend the olive branch.
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| Mel, the crazy DJ Smiley, and I. |
