I am a logical person, though I freely admit that I have a things for signs, for coincidences. Part of me believes that there is something to them. So, I’m going to tell you a story.

Last weekend I went to DC to visit my daughter. Of course we took in the sights…I mean, it’s me…

We’d been doing the Smithsonian strip, and were on our third and final museum of the day, the National Gallery. We had just seen the Sargent exhibit, and were trying to figure out how to get to the Vermeer, and we ran into a classmate/friend of my daughter’s and the young woman’s Mom. Big gallery, big city, lots of places to go…exact moment in time we pass one another.

Coincidence.

Next day my daughter and I were at the zoo. We were marveling at the funky contraption for the orangutangs, and who do we run into? The exact same friend/classmate and Mom that we’d run into the day before.

Coincidence?

A small backstory to this particular young woman we kept running into: She used to attend another university, where she became friends with one of my daughter’s good friends from middle school. What’s the chance that someone befriends someone at college who has a friend at the school you end up transferring to?

In the week prior to my trip, two of my blog friends wrote posts about coincidence and fate and whatever…

Are these all coincidences?

Is there a higher plan to all of this?

What do you make of the encounters that I encountered?

What say you about coincidences?

51 thoughts on “Anything Can Happen Friday: Coincidence”

    1. So do you have a theory? On a weird note, my daughter got accepted into something, which she’s not sure if she’s going to do. Two days ago they had a dinner for accepted students. She was seated next to a young woman who turns out to be the roommate of the girl we kept running into…isn’t that weird?

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      2. I don’t think everything that happens is significant, but I don’t believe the universe is random. And sometimes there are things that happen that can change your whole life and you may not even recognize it at the time. This is God altering your path to fit with His plan.

        Liked by 3 people

  2. I’ve asked the same question about coincidences. I have a family friend who has been over the last 15 years or so, the one person by far who I tend to bump into in shopping malls. And neither of us are ‘mall rats’, it’s just while doing regular grocery shopping and the like. And it’s not just one shopping mall in our area (she lives quite close to me), it’s been 3 or 4 different places in my town that I can think of. Don’t know quite what to make of this…

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. I wonder if the idea of coincidence would not even exist if we didn’t read deeper into chance happenings? Is it odd that you saw the same duo while out and about? Maybe, but also not so strange given parents visit kids/they tend to do the typical activities on college visits, etc. I suppose I’m trying to puzzle out if we as human individuals create the idea of coincidence because we are looking for something- an answer, meaning in life, connections…whatever?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I try to be practical, but I do wonder if there really is something…if it’s jthe subconscious trying to enlighten you. It’s a fun path to talk about though…I find it’s fascinating topic

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  6. I believe that many times we miss the value of something by by calling it a coincidence or luck. But thats not to say that every solitary thing has more meaning to it. I just think that as a norm we need to be more aware than we usually are.
    I would be thinking the same as you about running into the mom and her daughter. D.C. is big! What are the odds?
    I couldn’t keep from smiling though because I thought about the sand cat too that I just happened to post about that day. 😉

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  7. I believe in coincidences and I also believe in fate. I don’t think you meeting up with your daughter’s friend and her mom were either. I mean, your daughter is bright, this girl is bright and around the same age, so it’s likely they’d know each other if they are at the same school. Plus they have a mutual friend. ( That’s probably coincidental).
    But if her mom was in town at the same time as you were then it’s pretty likely you’d both be taking in the sights. Coincidence? Probably. Maybe it’s just that smart people think alike. Lol
    But , I do think some things are fate. Like when I went into the ER for what I thought was intestinal issues or bad food and I was referred back to my gynecologist after several days in the hospital on an IV for a possible tumor. My OBGYN, Who coincidentally had just teamed up with a gynecological oncologist Immediately set me up with an appointment with him when I brought her my test results. I’ve gone to that doctor for decades and this was the first time she teamed with an oncologist. I didn’t know he was one of the best surgeons in Fl or that he was also a skilled at robotic surgery, etc. The universe set things in motion just because my doctor had him use her office once a week while she traveled to another office to treat women in distress . I would never have thought to use this doctor because his main office is in another city. That coincidence saved my life. So yup! It was both coincidence and fate combined .
    Perhaps maybe, just maybe, everything is pre planned. I dunno. That my dear LA is the timeless question isn’t it? Is everything meant to be?

    I have two children almost 16 years apart. From two different husbands. I’ve always felt that both those sons were meant to born. Fate! Coincidence? What is really weird is when I was pregnant with my oldest child I kept dreaming of a dark haired big eyed baby boy. Every night I’d have that dream. Yet, that son was born with strawberry blonde hair. (Which became blonde curls when he was a toddler). However, when my second son was born about 16 years later with my second husband, that child came out looking exactly like the baby I had dreamt about all those years prior. With a full head of dark hair and big brown eyes. He held up his head right after birth looking like the exact dream I kept having when I was pregnant with my first child. You tell me what’s fate or coincidence. I just take things as they come these days and assume everything was meant to be…. I wish I were wise enough to know all that stuff! But it’s all too intense for me to understand.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  8. I feel coincidences/synchronicities are messages being transmitted mostly from our subconscious mind to our conscious, awake mind. I had some mind-blowing experiences with a few scenarios like that and in hindsight see things now I didn’t before. In two incidents, looking back, they were like small premonitions to alert me of something coming up. It was weird…

    The fact that you’re aware of the coincidences is an awakening of your consciousness, of sorts, in my view. We run mostly on preprogramming – habitual routine tasks and thoughts that feel familiar to us. Those are stored in our subconscious mind. When you become alert to events that seem like a coincidence, it might be because there’s some reason you were meant to see each other that day for some reason.

    I find it fascinating to follow these interesting unexplained events. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. I was at a PAC 12 swimming championships in a town near Seattle with my daughter. We ran into a teammate with her mother several times during the off meet hours. They were all at sights like a Chihuly museum and a famous park. This mother daughter were from Egypt but we obviously had some connection or were attracted to the same sorts of experiences. A coincidence? Not sure. When the coincidences keep happening, I think there’s something more there and we need to pay attention.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. A coincidence is just a coincidence. There’s no grand plan behind them. They just stand out because they seem weird. For example, the last time I was in Iceland, I met a photographer from the UK at Budakirkja on the western coast. We chatted for a bit, then went our separate ways. A few days later, we ran into each other again on the Diamond Beach on the southern coast. This might seem like there was some grand plan, but really we were photographers going to places in Iceland where a lot of photographers end up. I met several other photographers on that trip I never saw again. It was mere chance, nothing more. If I had encountered him yet again in, say, the little town of Hofn where I stayed, or if I had met all the other photographers again at other places in the country, then I might say there was something at work, but with all the trips I’ve taken and all the places I’ve been to, and all the photographers I’ve met, I only saw one of them twice.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  12. Weirdly, tonight, my husband and I went to a football game at our old high school, where we met. We ran into old classmates, people that knew our siblings, people just kept coming up, asking “do you remember me?” It was the homecoming game so lots of alumni show up. I just kept thinking why this particular person, why now, what is the message they have for me? I do think there are reasons why our paths cross, sometimes it’s not immediately apparent. Like when I got to meet you LA! There’s a reason! Hugs, C

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  14. I am fairly pragmatic but I don’t really believe in coincidences. I think there is a rhyme and reason things and people turn up when they do. I like my husband’s solution. When I mention a problem at work, he says a solution will turn up because there is no choice and he is right. Eventually, people come through because they have no choice and they have to or a solution turns up. Maybe this is the same with coincidences. We go where we feel comfortable and sometimes we meet the same people along the way. There are a couple I am about due to run into .

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  16. There are no coincidences. Everything you think, feel, or connect to is what shapes your very reality. It’s that simple, but you have to allow yourself to be receptive to that. To realize the “higher” and “greater” plan is all out of divination.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Since you commented, I’m going to give you an odd one. I write my posts two days in advance..ie I wrote tuesdays post on Sunday. I chose to write the post in 2nd person, which I never do. On Tuesday I’m taking a writing class. The lecture on the day the post appeared was on pov, and the teacher said we should play with 2nd person. Isn’t that weird?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s