Strangers

Have you ever met someone who knew you well, but you couldn't recall a previous encounter? How about the person whose life was so close to yours at one point that you can't believe your paths never crossed? Or the person you try to avoid like the plague, yet seems to end up in your face all the time?

I've had all of these in my life, and each one recently. I'm always uncomfortable when people know me from newspaper articles or news stories (my previous life was often public). Sometimes I fear because of negative attitudes from certain people. But I can't say anyone ever told me that once they met me I was nicer than they expected, or that they'd heard horrible things about me. There was just this uncalled for admiration that I was someone other people knew, and my own personal fears of course.

There was this other person who lived one block from me for twelve years. She walked past my house almost every day for her job. Yet I never knew her, though we shared some of the same friends. These fifteen years later we've met, found we have so much in common, and immediately became friends.

And there's the gentleman I avoided for nigh to ten years, who has been in my face through various circumstances over the past several weeks. These were not uncomfortable encounters, but ones that made me sit back and think why this person? And why so frequently lately?

And what will eternity be like? People we met by chance here and don't recall. People we met and wanted to get to know better. How about people we expected to see and can't find? Makes me sit back and ponder if these encounters are by chance after all. And what is their impression of me ~ good or bad? And how many will I spend eternity with...after all, eternity is a long time!