Maybe it’s a teacher thing, perhaps it’s a small town thing, or, maybe, it’s just me.  But I relish the opportunity to experience my worlds colliding.  It started back in the beginning of my career.  I was teaching grade 1s and 2s in a little rural school and it was “Grandparents” day. As it happens, some of my little people didn’t have grandparents who lived locally, or who could come for a few hours in the middle of the day, so I franchised my mother-in-law to come as a pinch-hitter.  She sat and read with my little grandparentless people, and as this was years before I had children of my own, I got to see her as a potential grandma, and she got to see me in a setting other than at a family gathering.  For years she would ask after one kid or another that she met that day.

Over time, because I still live in the same small town I grew up in (non sequitur: “Have you lived here all your life?”  “Not yet“), I often have opportunities for my life paths to cross.  I’ve taught offspring of people I went to school with, taught with the sister of an old boyfriend, worked with ex-colleagues of my parents, worked with people whose spouses work with my inlaws, brother, husband.

Recently, and I guess it’s even more striking because it was a milestone-y sort of things, I was at a Local Beverage Stop where a very loosely organized Birthday Night was being celebrated.  I had taught the daughters of the owners of the place, and usually knew a few faces in the crowd.

Here is how a night centred around someone else, actually became about me:

• The person whose birthday it was is someone I have known most of my life.
• His dad and my mum worked in the same law office for decades, he and I went through high school together, and eventually worked together in a couple of different capacities.
• The band that was playing that night was made up of teachers I have worked with who play in a rock band for fun.
• Then I started to notice the crowd:
  1. teachers, staff, and administrators from all over the school district on one side of the room
  2. a big table of people my age on the other side.

On closer inspection, the big table full of people were all people the birthday guy and I had graduated high school with. Throughout the evening, one after another familiar face walked through the door, into the warm embrace of old friends, family, co-workers.

All with the soundtrack of our lives playing in the background. It’s not the first time I have reflected on what it means to live in a small town.

And finally, convergence in the 21st century might not always be welcome.  Do you ever do a Google search on your own name? Imagine the shock and horror my boss experienced when doing his every-once-in-awhile Google check to see what his name brings up, only to find that after the first couple of images of himself, there is one of me…. *insert evil laugh here*