Try This for an Instant Wonder Fix

My parents first met at an anti-apartheid meeting. This has always given me slightly mixed feelings – on the one hand, I am hugely grateful they met and ended up having my three lovely siblings and me, but on the other, did it really have to be because of an oppressive, racist regime?!  

Like a lot of first meetings, my parents’ came so close to not happening. And they only got it together because the person who was supposed to be giving my mum a lift home wasn’t able to at the last minute, so my dad stepped in. It was on the journey home that they first got talking, and my dad ended up asking my mum if he could see her again.

If my mum had got a lift home as planned I, and my three siblings, and our combined three children would never have been born. Seven whole lives came into being because one person ducked out of giving my mum a lift – and because of a racist regime in South Africa, but let’s not dwell on that.

Two years after that meeting - hello world!

Whenever I’m feeling a little jaded and in need of a lift, thinking about how I came to meet the people who mean the most to me gives me an instant wonder fix.

Try it for yourself now: think of someone who means the world to you, maybe it’s your partner, or a close friend, or someone who’s played a pivotal role in your career.

Now think about how you first met. Think about where it was and how you came to be there. Think about all of the seemingly random choices you made – and they made – that led you to that place. All of the things that had to go right – or wrong – for your paths to cross. Think about all of the possible ways in which you might never have met.

Pulp have a great song on this subject called, Something Changed, featuring the lyrics…

I could have stayed at home and gone to bed

I could have seen a film instead

You could have changed your mind and seen your friends

Life could have been very different, but then…

Something changed

When I think about this it makes my spine tingle and it makes life feel so magical.

I hope that reading this has done the same for you.

Wishing you all a week filled with wonder and serendipitous meetings.

Siobhan

‘Thank you for fighting Apartheid, Dad!’