This might be a good, oh, three months late, but better late than never, right?

So get comfy and settled. I have a wonderful story for you. Well, I think it’s wonderful. There’s a high probability you’ll be thinking, WTF, the whole time. But, that’s cool. WTF runs through my mind like 938493 times a day.

Here goes … remember back in May, when I made my grand return home to D.C., and The VA? Where Maman and I had a fabulous time and hit up her cousin’s daughter’s wedding? In simple terms — my second cousin’s wedding.

Great. Now the other part to this, which involves a little confession … there’s a lot of friends I still have in VA … but can you still call them friends if you haven’t talked in maybe … four years. Whew. That’s bad.

It’s just one of those things where … you grow apart. People go different directions. And weird things happen in the friendship that you can’t even articulate or pinpoint … where maybe nothing even really happened, or no one did anything … it just … is that growing apart I suppose.

Well … as it turns out, I have a fair number of these friends. High school friends. College friends. Whom I was so incredibly close to. Whom my days completely revolved around. Whom I now no longer talk to, if I’m going to be real with you.

Every time I’m home, I think about calling one of them up. But I don’t. Our memories are scattered everywhere there … you know how hard it is for me just to drive down the freaking toll road, with the memory assaults, so I know you can imagine the friend-memory firing squad coming at me.

Still, I don’t pick up the phone.

It’s easier, of course, not calling … this not reaching out. Part of me doesn’t want to “go there” … the other part isn’t ready and the other part feels, it’s just time to leave that … it was a wonderful time in my life with wonderful people, but people don’t have to remain forever in our lives.

Flash forward now to said wedding.

Maman and I arrive and per our Tweedle Dee and Tweetle Dumbness, can’t find our seating place cards, not to mention, we don’t really even know anybody there. We’re totally out of our element. What element? There wasn’t one. Because did I mention yet that I don’t even know my second cousin? Seen her, yes. Talked to her, no.

I think everyone was probably staring at us like, “who the F are these two dummies?”.

So I’m looking and looking and searching for our names … when I come across a name. A name that stops me dead in my tracks. I do a double take and then another and then shout outloud, mind you, “HOLY SHIT! BEAVER IS HERE!”.

Maman comes running over, because, well … I’ve just not only said but shouted “holy shit” and she’s mortified. But I don’t care. Because my heart is pounding and I’m frantically looking for  Beaves. And Maman is all, “are you sure? BEAVER? THE BEAVER?”

And then I hear her. The voice I’d know in any dark-lit, seedy bar with lots of drunks : “What THE FUCK. You dumb fucking bitch! Get the fuck over here!”. Heads turned. Maman wanted to die {it was the  loud, “fucks” that did her in}.

And the love flooded over me, because “dumb bitch” here is used as the highest of high compliments from Beaves. And more high pitched words and screams and “what the fucks are you doing here” ensured and we’re both crying and it’s all so very post Delta Delta Delta sorority-esque.

Especially seeing as how Beaves almost got kicked out of DDD, too {see why we became friends?} and yes, I really do call her Beaves — she’s my Beaver, aka : The Beaver. But that story will have to wait for another time and it’s all sorts of inappropriate, which I’m warning you now so you can remember I did give a fair warning.

My People … please tell me, what are the f-ing chances? The chances of this meeting!

Beaver is someone who is on my mind way too frequently … a friend I have dearly missed … my first friend I made in DDD, whom I instantly loved. I was drawn to her honesty and openness and her “I don’t give a shit what you f-ing think” attitude. She was outlandish and opinionated. Qualities I can’t help but admire. And such an incredible human being.

Of all the weddings, of all the people … the millions of people living in the Northern Virginia area … here we are. At the same f-ing wedding, of a cousin I hardly know.  What are the chances?

We marveled over this. We speculated. We wondered and we decided, The People brought us together. We were meant to be back in each other’s lives. Because this thing, we kept saying, this thing … it is not random.

It turns out, my second cousin and Beaves, they are in a book club together. They live five minutes away from each other. Five minutes! Again … what are the chances?

We spent all night talking away, as though we had literally just seen each other. No time had gone by in these four plus years.

We picked right back up. We cried and laughed. We barely moved from our chairs. Beaves told everyone to, “fuck the fuck off” when they tried to get us on the dance floor, because — clearly, we had way more important things to do and to discuss.

I wasn’t even going to go to this wedding. Beaves wasn’t either. But I had made a little deal with The Universe and with Maman … if I could find a last minute e-saver deal, I’d come.

Meanwhile, 500 miles away, Beaves made a deal, as well. She wasn’t planning on attending, but … but, if her parents rearranged their entire schedule and her brother didn’t end up coming into town and her adorable one year old son could be watched, she and the hubs would be there.

We were utterly astounded at how perfect, just absolutely perfect it was. How we were brought together in this way. All of the many moving parts and pieces that had to be just so for it to have worked out … and work out, it did.

It was The Universe saying … see. Do you see how perfect things are, how even though you can’t see it, so much is happening and it is happening in perfect timing … just be and things will be.

I couldn’t ignore how strong this message was for me. How inspired I was at knowing, there really are many unseen pieces at play and those pieces are falling into place.

A place that is beautiful and right for us. And anything but random.