It’s already 2 months later, and our relationship has been moving steadily. Everything feels positive and comfortable. We are opening up to each other more every day, and our public displays of affection have evolved the same.

Back to the synchronicity topic: all coincidences that seemed to be pointing at him prior to us dating have completely vanished. This will probably sound silly, but soon after they disappeared, I realized I was kind of missing them. Even though we were actually together at that point, which was basically my wish coming true. So I really couldn’t complain. But those little winks from fate were so unusual and quirky, it made life seem a bit more magical, so to speak. I went through this “dead” phase soon after we started dating, where I had no more coincidences whatsoever. Mind you, I was on cloud 9 as far as being with him was concerned! And I still am. So I’m not complaining.

That being said, another type of quirky coincidences has started showing up very recently. They’re coincidences about us both. Strange details we have in common. Similar facts and events we’ve both experienced. Identical tastes about certain things that we never knew we had in common. We have more than once met up for a date, accidentally wearing the exact same colors or pattern. We also noticed we were carrying the exact same handkerchief in our right pocket, made out of the exact same fabric with the exact same print, both being gifts from our parents several years ago. Little details like that, which make us giggle and note “this must be fate”.

So, his name popping up everywhere, as well as the other synchronicities I used to experience, have now been replaced by mutual coincidences that involve us both together, which are much more personal and strengthen our bond in the sweetest way. Life is so strange.

Along come certain fears though. Fears of loss, tragedy, death, accidents. Pretty somber thoughts, I know. But I can’t help but wonder why I would deserve all this, and whether I’ll be given lots more years of it, just like that, or if -as in most movies- happiness is always disturbed by an unfortunate event. An event revealing the actual lesson or challenge to accomplish. Hmm.

Or hey, maybe I just watch too much TV. I don’t know, I’ve had that feeling, or rather, that “fear” that something tragic is creeping around the corner for over a week now. Ah, the human mind. Will it ever just feel safe and content?

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Meanwhile, (and although I haven’t had the time to really take matters into my own hands just yet) things have taken a pretty funky turn.

About 2 or 3 weeks ago, I got back in touch with an old friend of mine by e-mail. He’s completely unrelated to Mr. Synchronicity, by the way. I have to admit I had tried to keep the Synchronicity guy out of my head in the past couple of months, because I really had too much going on already. Then as my old friend and I started writing to each other, I’ll admit that the thought of him actually being a nice potential boyfriend crossed my mind. Especially since he’s a lot more reachable and thus an easier target than Mr. Synchronicity and he’s not too bad looking either. I got a little carried away for a few days (lol), and immediately realized I had to cool off. I wanted to invite him out for lunch or coffee, but didn’t want to do this with the wrong state of mind. I’ve been single for months now, and I’m slowly starting to miss having a boyfriend. So I decided to give myself a few days to chill and figure out which direction I really wanted to go. He is an old friend after all, and he could simply remain a friend if I want to.

Then a quirky little synchronicity happened, which was surprisingly linked to  … my old friend!

The day I had decided to cool off for a few days, I had quickly read over the mails we had exchanged so far, and suddenly wondered where exactly he was living at the moment as he hadn’t mentioned it yet. Then I remembered him telling me 2 years ago that he had moved to a certain town not too far from here, and I randomly wondered what zip code that was. But I had to go and I couldn’t be bothered to look it up. so I closed my laptop and left. The next day, I received an e-mail from someone … it was a guy I had e-mailed a while back about a dining table for sale. The dining table was to be picked up by the buyer at his place, so I had asked him where exactly he was located. A few days passed, and as I got no response, I assumed that the table got sold and didn’t think more of it. So then, exactly one day after wondering about my old friend’s address, I got a message from this seller saying: “Hi, I’m so sorry for the delay. I’m in name of the town + zip code” – I gasped – There it was, right in front of me: the town and zip code I had been too lazy to look up the day before! The place where my old friend lives! Hah! I giggled. This was neat.

I jumped to conclusions and assumed: “Hey, this synchronicity thing must be pointing at whoever could be a good match for me. So it’s not necessarily all about one exclusive soulmate or something.” So I contacted my old friend and asked him if he wanted to meet up and grab something to eat together. (I also found it incredibly ironic how that one e-mail mentioning his town + zip code was actually about a DINING table). So anyway, we decided that a place next to his work would be the most practical, as my schedule is much more flexible than his. So he gave me his office address. It didn’t hit me right away, but I realized a few hours later that it is in fact only 2 streets away from where Mr. Synchronicity works. And on top of it, Mr. Synchronicity’s work is actually  right on my way there. I was a little baffled, and decided to look at a map and see if there was any other way to get there without passing in front of Mr. Synchonicity’s work. Well, there isn’t. It’s right there, and there’s no way to avoid it. My stomach cramped up a little as I realized that it all inevitably spins right back at him!!

My friend and I haven’t decided about the exact day yet, as I’m still pretty busy myself, and he’s got some stuff going on at the moment too. So it will probably be some time in the next few weeks. It would be the icing on the cake if I actually bumped into Mr. Synchronicity on my way there, but let’s not jump to conclusions yet. Whatever the case though, I’m sure this new series of events isn’t just a coincidence, and I’m pretty confident that there’s more to come.

I Googled the subject some more today, and found the results quite frustrating. I basically found:

• people who were in the same situation as me and wondered what was happening to them
• New Age websites continuously mixing up synchronicities with soulmates, claiming they are well understood facts, and seriously explaining how they’re linked to past lives …. blah blah

Uhm, no. Those aren’t answers. And while the past lives topic seriously makes me cringe, I also have to face the fact that it doesn’t look like regular every day confused people – like you and me – have really looked into this yet, or have even attempted to figure it out. Not even on their own personal level (as I’m aware it’s really hard to generalize conclusions and apply them to everybody, since every life is different). I’m no expert in anything, and neither are the people who come to this website looking for answers. New Age theories bore me, and they are actually quite pointless. Because what matters is finding out how far things can really go in real life and in practice. I will find out soon whether my proactive reaction to these synchronicities is the dumbest mistake ever or an amazing leap of faith with great results.

As mentioned in my very first post about the subject: I am very careful about the whole soulmate concept, and I don’t feel comfortable labeling my experience as such yet. The facts are: I have consistently bumped into coincidences revolving around the same person, sometimes to an almost surreal point, but that’s all I know for now, and that’s all I’m gonna have to work with.

I have decided to handle this very objectively, and although it may be hard, I have to keep myself on track without getting carried away by emotions. At least within reason … :p I will now explain my 2-step list of how I’m planning to handle it, and concretely react and take control of the situation.

- Step 1: Keeping in touch with reality
I started a file on my desktop; it’s a list of all the memories I have involving him, back when we interacted on a daily basis. I found it vital to put it all down, and remember the good and the bad days. What felt great, and what felt bad. What he did, and what he didn’t do. What I said, and what he said. Every memory is a precious piece of my puzzle. I realized I had only kept a limited number of memories in mind, which gave me a rather narrow view of what the real situation was several years ago. The rest had been pushed so far back in my head that I had almost forgotten it completely, and now that I have started this list, memories are slowly starting to pop back up. Things I had completely forgotten, interesting memories that didn’t seem meaningful back then and which now look like they might actually be quite important. Our memory is selective, it’s important to gear it back into wide open/neutral mode. Because every piece matters. It also makes me realize that things with him have never been a flawless fairytale, and that certain things did go wrong. They went wrong for a reason. I don’t know all the reasons yet, but this list is slowly helping me figure them out. To my biggest surprise, it has also made me realize my own flaws. Things I didn’t handle right, opportunities I didn’t take when I had the chance to, partly because I was too young and inexperienced. They’re things I know now, and mistakes I wouldn’t make again, and that is already a valuable lesson.

- Step 2: The plan
Since all those coincidences seem to be centered around this one person, only one reaction sticks out as the most obvious: getting back in touch with him, somehow. He seems to be the center of it all, so I must get to the core of this; which is him. I made a list of all the different ways I could possibly contact him:
- I have his phone number
- I have his e-mail address at work
- We have a friend in common (although she doesn’t seem to see him much anymore)
- I live near his work
- He plays in a local band; which has a website with future gigs listed

These are all possibilities for me to either meet him or get in touch with him. Now I have to weed through the list, and decide which would be the most appropriate options and put them in that order. For instance, I dumped the e-mail at the bottom, because it’s stupid to even consider it … “Hello, I just found your work e-mail address and figured I’d say hello … after almost a decade”. Awkwarddd. It also screams “lame and pathetic”, because hiding behind a screen has never been too memorable.

I put our common friend at the top of the list, because it’s a nice way of getting back in touch with people. It’s not awkward and it flows more naturally. So I think I’ll try to push things in that direction first and see how it goes. If it fails, I’ll move on to option 2, and so on. I’m still not sure I’d want to go as far down as e-mailing him though, hahah!

It also feels important to me not to strictly consider him in a romantic way, because maybe there is another purpose behind it all. And although I admit he does look really appealing to me, I have already accepted that we could simply be friends, and that would be perfectly okay.

I have also decided to use this blog as my little motivation diary. It’s easier to stick to things and get them done correctly when you write them down and share them publicly. I’m sure I’ll need. First step for me now: calling our common friend. I haven’t spoken to her in a while, so we should definitely meet up for a drink soon, and then I’ll have to play it by ear as far as he’s concerned. Fingers crossed!

I had spent the day analyzing this whole situation and wondering how to go about maybe contacting him. I initially thought I should decide to either do something about it, or just let it go once and for all. A friend of mine (my only confident actually) then told me that it would probably be best to try first, and then only move on if it doesn’t work out. Which I suppose makes sense.

So, since desperate needs call for desperate measures, I sat down and, uhm, I prayed (I don’t do that very often!). Yikes, I feel a bit nerdy for even admitting I did lol Those coincidences had all been too disturbing to me. Each single one of them. It was like something had grabbed me and went “Look!”. Again, and again, and again. And every time, I gasp and wonder, and every new one adds more questions to the table, which has now reached an overwhelming level.

So I prayed, and I asked for something. I asked: if all those coincidences were really hints sent from somewhere, if they were actually meaningful and had a purpose, then I wanted just one last sign. Not involving his name, nor his birthday, nor a song, nor anything like that. I wanted something strong and impossible to avoid; just one last sign, almost like an omen confirming that this is indeed the path I should follow. (Well, don’t I sound highly dramatic now?)

The day passed, evening started, then night settled in. I was answering some e-mails past midnight when suddenly the lights in the back of the room started flickering. Then the lamp next to me started flickering too, and as I heard an electric noise, the power suddenly went out. I stood up in the dark and saw nothing through the window, the entire neighborhood had gone black. I opened the window and it was so abnormally silent outside, all the lights had gone out, it was like a frozen scene. Then suddenly an alarm went off a few streets down, I looked in that direction and saw lots of smoke rising from behind the roofs. I looked behind me, my dog was sitting on the bed looking at me, he seemed calm. I looked back outside, the whole area was dead. It’s usually a well lit, active place, with lots of cars and people passing, both day and night. I had never seen it like that. It was totally dark and silent, and plain surreal. The alarm was echoing from the distance, and then stopped. My window was still wide open, so I sat at the window sill and looked around. The wind started blowing my hair around, it felt so eerie. Clouds started moving faster and smoke was coming our way, and for the first time in this street, the only sound I could hear was the trees swaying in the dark. I stood up and walked to the bed where I sat down, I frowned and I wondered. Then I heard the fire truck passing, it quickly faded and stopped, I looked up and saw some ashes flying past the window … it was eerie, almost haunting.

Maybe this was my sign. Or maybe I’m crazy. I don’t know anymore.

Off the top of my head, here’s a quick list of some freaky things that happened to me since my last post:

• In March, all the computers at work strangely set themselves to his birth year. We didn’t notice right away, but customers slowly started complaining that their invoices weren’t dated right. I figured it was just some random glitch, until we got flooded with hundreds of angry messages. And it quickly spread to the entire system. It then spontaneously fixed itself after 2 days, before we could even figure out what had caused it. That year popped up all over the place for two whole days, it was literally insane.
• There’s another guy I used to have a bit of a crush on … I looked him up a few months ago and noticed he was using a fake name online (I suppose to protect his privacy, which I understand) … Well, his fake full name turns out to be my middle name + Mr. Synchronicity’s last name. I gasped when I saw it! I have no idea how he came up with that combination, but in any case, it is disturbing how he just pulled it out of the blue. I never even told him any of this, because we were never that close, but yeah, that fake name gives me chills. Needless to say I clicked away fast! -ugh-
• A couple more weird things happened after that, but it involves too specific details to mention here.
• And last week, the name of his band (which is a quite uncommon word; I even had to look up the meaning lol) was mentioned to me in 3 different situations, the very same day. The first time, I didn’t think much of it. The second time, I thought it was funny. The third time, I was officially creeped out.

I don’t know what to make of it all. I’m sure some people will say I’m reading too much into things. I don’t know, maybe I am. Maybe I should set myself a goal. Like, make up my mind about it, and decide to either get in touch with him soon, or let go now and turn the page for good. It’s obviously bugging me, still, so I’m tempted to go with option 1. I guess I just shouldn’t have any expectations; simply go for it and see where it leads me. If it all turns into a major fiasco, or even nothing at all, then I’ll know for sure that it was just some silly crap in my head. And then I can share it with the hundreds of people who visit this blog (yes, I’m shocked! I didn’t know there were so many of us in this situation lol), and then we can all learn that we’re simply a little sick in the head. Hahah

I wish somebody on the net had actually documented their own personal case already, and drawn objective conclusions to share with the world. It might spare me from some serious embarrassment. I guess I’ll have to find out for myself. I’ll keep you guys updated!

Most of my questions are left unanswered at this point, but I would like to find out more about what it is exactly that triggers those “coincidences” or “synchronicities” as some people call them. And more importantly: are they really that meaningful, or are we just making a big deal out of nothing?

If I analyze all the past coincidences I’ve had, I could rationally eliminate a bunch of them and just call them luck. Like the big billboard that was put up right next to my apartment a few years ago, it had his last name tagged right in the middle, followed with “it’s all you need!”. Of course I couldn’t avoid looking at it every day as I came back home, it was right there in front of me. But if I told you his last name is one of the most common names in the country, you’d quickly throw it out the window. And so will I. Because easy coincidences are not that hard to find if you look for them.

However, although I haven’t seen him in years, things have gotten a bit more disturbing lately. It started about 2 months ago. The one that shocked me the most happened while I was watching a new series on TV. The main character reminded me of him; the resemblance was uncanny. Right before the first episode ended, a child looked up at him and asked him when he was born. He looked at the child and told him his birth-date … I think my heart skipped a beat! The day, month, and year, were EXACTLY the same. I was stunned. And come to think of it, I find myself a bit creepy for actually remembering his birthday after so many years. Hah! But back to the series: I kept asking myself, what were the chances of this ever happening? I mean, really. I’m sure the chances were pretty damn low. (edit: ok, I calculated and it’s basically one chance out of roughly 131400 different combination possibilities).

Another one happened yesterday; the car I was in happened to pass right in front of the place where he works … Not that big of a deal. Except that right that second, the radio started playing the last song I had heard him sing. Again, I was speechless. Those coincidences were starting to get far trickier than the easy ones I had seen before.

So now what? Let’s assume they’re some kind of signs from whoever/whatever/wherever. All clearly pointing to this one person in a way I could not possibly avoid it, yet subtle and private enough for no one else around to notice. I haven’t seen him in years though. So why does life keep rubbing it in my face?

Since the level of freakishness of all those synchronicities got me thinking on a more spiritual level (and I really tried to stay as clear headed as possible), I started looking for more spiritual answers. As I read my way through several pages, I systematically bumped into the subject of soul-mates. Soulmates are such a vast topic though, I’m not sure I even want to go there. One thing is certain though: unless this is some kind of big cosmic joke, I keep being hit in the head by massive arrows pointing right at him. And if there is a purpose or point behind all this, I guess I would logically have to react to them … and the only obvious reaction would be to get back in touch with him, I suppose.

But how crazy is that? Someone I haven’t spoken to in years. Hello awkward. Although at this point I’m starting to be really curious as to what would happen if I actually did initiate contact. Would the coincidences stop? Would there be a lesson to learn down the road? What’s the point of it all?

I’m still searching …

• Read the outcome here (as well as everything that happened in between).
  (added November 27th 2008)