Small World

I lived in the dorms with a girl named Hayley freshman year at LSU. After I moved out of the dorms and into the sorority house sophomore year we stopped hanging out as much and I don't think I've seen or spoken to her in almost 10 years. She was from Orange, TX and graduated from LSU in 3 years (me....I was on the 5-year plan). She studied all the time and had a boyfriend back home that she was planning on marrying. We were 18 years old and she had a savings account that was specifically for her wedding. (Yeah, I SO was NOT there yet at 18 y.o.)

So anyway....I'm on LinkedIn and am "connected" to all these people I went to grad school with. I see her name pop up on one of those "people you may know" things and so I sent her a message to make sure it was her. Well, it was her and it turns out that she went to the same grad school I did (about 3 years before me) and also got her MHA. Isn't that weird? I mean, UHCL is a pretty small school and the MHA program is relatively small too. She majored in business at LSU and I was Poli Sci and I don't think that either one of us had any intention of doing anything in healthcare at all. So she still lives in Houston and I told her I'd let her know the next time I head that way so that we could meet up. She did marry the boy that she was dating in college and they have a little boy named Owen (I love that name).

Like, do you ever feel that some people are just generally supposed to be a part of your life? Like when someone pops up over and over again in the most random places? Or when you realize that you were, at some point, at the same location of a person who was at one time significant in your life, but didn't realize that you were in the same city/building/etc that they were at that same time? Sorry if I'm not making any sense, but this kind of stuff just makes me think about life and fate and plans that the universe has for us, and crap like that.

I really wish I did not care about the purpose of life or the reason that we are here. I would love to be one of those dumb bitches that thought Sex and the City II was a great movie, or only worries about whether or not her roots are showing or what kind of Coach bags are on sale at the mall. It does me absolutely no good to worry about stuff that I can't control, but I still do.

So anyway, I'm not sure where I was going with all this. I guess in thinking about my friends and the hubbs, it's just crazy how everything happened. Jeanne is one of my bestest friends and I never would have met her had she not dated Dupe; and I never would have met Dupe had I not lived with the Kelly's; and I never would have met the Kelly's if I hadn't joined the sorority and on and on and on.

So now that I think about it, Pero is sort of indirectly responsible for my marriage. Because I never would have met Neal were it not for Kelly N. And I never would have hung out with Kelly N had Pero not asked me at the bus stop on campus one day if I wanted to live with in the sorority house with her and Kelly N.

And Neal never would have come to LSU had he not gotten drunk with his cousin one night in Monroe and said, "Hey, you know what we should do? Transfer to LSU." And Neal and Pruitt grew up their entire lives about 15 minutes from each other in tiny towns and never met until LSU.

Sorry, I'll stop now. All I'm sayin' is that I think that shit happens for a reason.