One of My Favorite Things

One of my favorite things in the whole world happened today. Went out for lunch with some friends. CU has their spring break this week; we decided it was a good time to hit one of the restaurants near the CU campus when it’s not overrun by college kids. So we’re sitting at The Sink, in a side room, waiting for our food. Out of the corner of my eye, for a split-second, I see a woman who looks like my wife walking through the front room, carrying a baby. Couldn’t be her, since she rarely goes to Boulder, and why would she be at the Sink of all places, but man, she really looked like my wife. A few seconds later I saw her sister walk by with my daughter, and it made sense – her sister works near the Hill, so they must have had a lunch date.

Anyways, I went over and said hi, took my son to hang with the guys (who very politely indulged us) and eat pizza for a few minutes, then traded him for my daughter who was feeling left out, and then we went our separate ways. Needless to say, it was all a complete coincidence, as I had no idea she was going to Boulder, and she didn’t know I was going out for lunch. That sparked an interesting conversation with my friends about weird random meetings with people you know – which apparently happens more than you’d guess.

I was totally pumped to see my family, and I had a smile on my face for the rest of the day. It’s hard to explain why I was that excited. I mean, I love my family and all, but it’s not like I miss them the moment I step out of the door. We just finished spending the weekend together and I was five hours away from being home in the evening, so it’s not like I’d been gone for a long time. Put it another way – we met for a planned lunch last week – and it was fun to see them, but it was a hundred times more fun to see them unexpectedly today.

I’ve run into my wife randomly like that once before. Just after we were married; I was between jobs and eating lunch at the Chipotle at 55th and Wadsworth – not particularly close to our house. I was reading some programming book; looked up, and my wife was standing there in line; she was coming home from her part-time job. I waved; after she got her food I put the book away and we had a thoroughly pleasant lunch. Again, it’s hard to explain why we got such a kick out of seeing each other, but that lunch is one of our favorite memories from all the time we’ve been together – in fact, we were just talking about it a few weeks ago.

So why are those random encounters so special? I think it has something to do with spontaneity, and stepping out of the roles in which we stereotype ourselves. Our lives are pretty structured, and we often view the present in terms of our expectations. Random surprises break us out of our mold and force us to encounter the present on its terms, to see each other with fresh eyes. Does that make sense? Maybe not. I’ll have to think about this some more. I’d sure like to find a way to replicate the experience.