A rando danced with me in a nightclub and asked for my phone number. I was waffling about it and the friend I came with got impatient, saying “He looks okay, just give him the number!”. I did, and we’ve been happily married for 40 years.

Replaced my old 90s Peugeot mountain bike with something more modern in 2010 because I thought the four mile commute to work might be fun.

Then I discovered how much I like long distance riding. Ended up liking it so much I rode the Seattle to Portland yearly event five times.

Then I ended up riding across the continent from Seattle to central Florida while laid off, just because it seemed like it’d be fun. (It was!) Eventually was commuting 20+ miles to the new job, though I did take the train in the mornings, I’m not that much the masochist.

Now I’ve got 39 titanium implants because some asshole ran a red light rather than look up from his phone, snapping my left femur, breaking my pelvis, turning my left tibia and fibula into a jigsaw puzzle, and exploding my right femur’s condyle, so that little whim to try commuting by bike didn’t lead to only sunshine and roses.

On the other hand…because I did have the thought 13 years previously that commuting to work by bike might be fun, I was in such extraordinary shape when the car hit me that even though I’m in my mid 50s, I went from wheelchair to walker to cane in months, and was back on the bike within a year.

“I should try commuting to work by bike!” Hoo boy, what a ride—if you’ll forgive the pun—that little notion set in motion.

I read a very short blurb in a newsletter that mildly piqued my interest and maybe a month later had a whole new career in wildlife biology, and what a ride it’s been ever since

I needed to renew my passport while I lived abroad. I had 6 months do do it, so I was in absolutely no rush, but I chose this one particular week to get it over with. Then this volcano thing happened, and I got stranded with the long term effect that I’m now a family man with four kids and a mortgage.

But yeah, I’ve had several events in life that, at the time, were unfortunate events. But in the grand scheme of things, a lot of good things happened only because the bad things happened first. Helps me to keep perspective when things in life start turning sour.

I replied to an email. It led to me discovering I like guys, moving to another country, and getting married. It’s something I think about a lot.

My therapist sent me a link to some meet up type events that she thought I would be interested in going to so I could meet people.

When I got the email, I told myself I’d finish cooking, eat and buy the tickets for the board game night afterwards. Three hours later and I was disappointed to see the last tickets were gone and the event was now sold out.

The same event promoter had a halloween party so I booked a ticket for that instead.

I went to the party and had a great time. At the end of the night as everyone was leaving, I heard someone who I never saw that night loudly say “I’m going to see Enter Shikari next week!” I was a bit in shock but I told her I also had tickets to see the same band next week too. We talked for 5 minutes and exchanged numbers before parting ways that night.

It’s been nearly a year since that night and we are now super close friends. There’s so much love and understanding between the both of us. When we hang out, there’s so much talking, hugs, kisses and cuddles and I feel so lucky to have met her. Plus I get to meet a these amazing and unique people through her, her partner and her friends which I’m also super thankful for as well.

I was super disappointed to miss the board game night but the Halloween party was where the magic all happened :)

Butterfly effect lol.

My brain keeps thinking about alternate timelines.

The earliest event I think about is regarding my birth. (Might be slightly political, just a heads up, didn’t intended to talk politics but the laws are kinda intertwined with politics) So my mother had me after she already gave birth to my older brother. Official government policy is that having a second child was supposed to be illegal in mainland China (aka: One Child Policy), so my mom told me she went to GuangZhou to hide from the authorities. She told me she had to quit her job so people wouldn’t know about the pregnancy. I assuming because of jurisdiction issues (Hukou is from a village), this kinda slipped through the cracks (think like a cop from one US State not being able to cross into another state), and cross-jurisdiction cooperation was kinda broken at the time. But like just one person snitching on my mother’s locationwould’ve resulted me not being born, which means this comment wouldn’t exist.

The second instance was when I ran away from home once. Apparantly abductions were kinda a problem in mainland China, and cops being lazy af and didn’t do much about that.

TLDR about the incident: So I had a fight with my brother, I ran away. Don’t wanna explain all the details, but if I had wandered into the wrong street, I could’ve gotten abducted.

Or maybe that’s just my mom fearmongering to have more control over me, IDK.

Then there’s this one thing which is probably the turning point of my life. I almost forgot about this till now.

When my family arrived in the US, and my mom was enrolling me in public school, my mom told the school admin to put me one grade below than I was supposed to be so I can “learn English better”. And the school accepted her request.

So… this one semmingly tiny change defined my life trajectory.

Think of all the people I’ve met, imagine the other timeline where I didn’t get put one grade lower and stayed on the grade I was supposed to be.

All those acquaintances I would’ve never had (people normally say “friends” but I consider them “acquaintances” since I always kinda felt like I was left out of conversations), all the bullies I would’ve never had to meet, all the shitty teachers (I mean I might’ve been assigned into a different class).

Maybe that trajectory is better because the “dice roll” of classmates I got might’ve been better.

Or maybe worse, I have no idea, I don’t got a time machine.

But being one of the oldest in my class made me have self esteem issues, it further worsened my socially awkwardness. Sometimes there teachers eould ask about the age for some class activity, or some “ice breaker” or something and I was always embarassed to talk about it, so sometimes I lied about being one year younger to fit in.

So yea, I might’ve never met my cat in that timeline, since… you know, butterfly effect.

Maybe I got a different cat, maybe a more mischevious cat, or perhaps a more friendly cat.

Idk, alternate timelines always make my head spin. My head hurts thinking about it.

Edit: P.S. If you haven’t already, play Life is Strange (the first one). Its worth it I promise. (It’s about time travel and butterfly effects. One of the most lifechanging experiences I ever had.)

Edit 2: I want to add, that was only like 10 minutes of my mom talking to the school admin. So like… that was just one small school office, and a conversation of about 10 minutes ended in me being essentially starting school in the US being demoted one grade, which culminated in a whole different timeline. Let that sink in. One small room. A 10 minute conversation. Just that. An entire different timeline.

This universe is just chaotic and crazy.