Some things you don’t see for decades.
In 2002, my wife and I gifted our television set to a complete stranger, through a charity we both worked with at the time.
As the person who requested it happened to live in the town I grew up in, we decided to deliver it one day on a trip up from London to visit my grandmother. Having been raised in the suburbs, I wasn’t actually familiar with the north of the city, but it was easy enough to get to.
After dropping it off, gratefully received by a woman of Pakistani origin, I thought no more about it. We were going through our life without TV phase and were just glad somebody else could make use of it.
That was until two decades later, when I found myself with a compulsive urge to reacquaint myself with people I’d known long ago. Happening upon a reference to an old acquaintance in a local newspaper article, the name of their street jumped out at me.
Yes, for it was in the very same neighbourhood we’d visited in 2002 with our old television. The exact address, I don’t recall, as each avenue in the estate is named numerically. And, well, because it was twenty years ago.
But was it conceivable that all those years ago we had gifted it to a relative of theirs, or a neighbour, or even their mother? We will never know, I suppose. But would it surprise me if we had? Not anymore!
Our lives, it turns out, are very strange indeed. If a person you once knew moved from out of area into the same town as you, would you even know it?
Perhaps one day you might encounter them on the tube or bump into them in the supermarket. But most likely not. Of the twenty thousand people that live in my adopted town, how many do I know? Even on my street, just a few.
Most of the time, we would never know if our paths crossed with others throughout our lives. Would we ever know if we took the same train daily? What if we had dinner one evening just streets apart?
Just two years ago, I thought it impossible that I would ever again encounter people I had once known long ago. But in the two years since I’ve been shown over and over how completely wrong I was.
In truth, we are not in control of our destinies at all. A reality it has taken me years to really see.
Last modified: 22 September 2024
