Timing is everything.

I was accused recently of being a bit depressed and negative in my posts. Thing is, I wasn’t. I’m not. (And I don’t like that my wit seems to sound sad.) So when I began to ruminate on the following as something to muse on here, it seemed fitting…

In the last few days I’ve had this overwhelming sense of gratitude. It encompasses me completely as I think about certain people in my life. But even more, I’m awed by the timing of things.

Remember Toughguy? Well, our families have known each other on the periphery for more than 20 years. Life continued, we stayed separate. Fast forward to now. Out of the blue Toughguy and I connect online. We start talking, usually daily. We seem to understand each other on certain deeper levels. As we share ourselves, the strange connections come to light.

First of all, he is actually living in the exact same room I did when I lived in the Seattle area. Eerie, right? He only moved up there recently, though, and before that he lived not even two miles from me. We frequented the same supermarket and liquor store a block from my house. We ran the same back roads at the same time of day. We relaxed at the same park. And we never noticed one another.

But had we met then, I don’t believe I would have been able to connect in the same way I can currently. The process of healing, of life, brought me to be open NOW. So it took all the missing each other to find each other at the right moment… likely for both of us. As a result I have this rich, and I believe abiding, friendship. That’s really an amazing thing.

The same thing with my friend Sky. We’ve been close for a couple years now, but when she came along it was right on the heels of two people I deeply cared about walking away from me for reasons I never quite understood. But at that time, she and I both needed what the other had to offer – unencumbered acceptance, which is to say, true friendship.

In that, I believe I helped her through some dark times, but I KNOW she saved me. Put me on the path to mindful health. How incredible is that? Had that friendship come earlier, I might have been tied up with those other two people and she might have been lost in the all-consuming day-to-day of a job she hated (and had just left when we met). But we connected at that moment when we both were… ready.

It’s inspiring. But mostly, it’s just humbling. I’m so grateful. I’m so blessed.