On July 4, 2008, I started a Meetup group for young widows and widowers. In November, a widower joined the group. Not long after we met, we started "talking" in a chatroom associated with a website for young widows and widowers. It did not take long for a friendship to form.
Around the same time my widower friend joined our group, he also joined a hiking group. It is an "urban" hiking group, with walks around the Portland area. Once a month, the organizer of the group plans a very easy hike and my widower friend invited me to join him for the easy walk in January 2009. I wasn't sure about this whole hiking business, so I went as a guest of my friend. It was a nice walk around a neighborhood I hadn't explored and I enjoyed it. I ended up going on a more strenuous walk with the group a few weeks later, also as a guest of my friend, and ultimately ended up joining the group.
Not long after I joined, I went on my first hike alone-meaning I didn't have my friend there; I didn't have the comfort of having the one person I knew from the group there with me. It was a night hike-another first for me. I ended up meeting a guy on the hike who seemed nice enough and in one of my "finer" moments, felt the need to tell him my life story. That was in May 2009 and the last time our paths crossed on a hike, but not the last time our paths were meant to cross.
In September 2009, the guy I met on that night hike started the "fun" Meetup group. Nine days after he created it, I was browsing the groups in my area and thought the description of his group was exactly what I was looking for (it was) and I joined the group. I didn't run into him again until we did a volunteer project together at the end of October. I was nervous wondering if he would remember me and was relieved when he saw me and asked if I remembered him.
As I have become more active in this group over the last couple of months, I have met a lot of new people and am getting to the point where I am starting to see some of the same faces again and again. I have also been doing a bit too much and am a bit burnt out at work, so I have been thinking about taking a day off. (I also thought if I had a day off to look forward to, I would be more inclined to actually do my job as I have been totally unmotivated lately). I thought if it was a nice day that I took off, I might see if I could find someone who might be interested in going on a short hike with me.
Since I have a hike in mind, I was looking through the past events on the calendar for the hiking group to see if I could find the information for it. When I pulled it up, I was surprised to see a couple of members of the "fun" group on the list of people who had attended. This got me wondering, so I went back and looked at all the hikes I have done with the hiking group and sure enough, each one of them had at least one member of the "fun" group in the attendee list; people I didn't know from Adam (Eve?) at the time but now see on a regular basis.
I guess these are people who I was meant to meet or our paths wouldn't keep crossing. And it makes me wonder-who else have I already crossed paths with and just don't realize it (yeah, I know) and who else has yet to cross my path?
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