- I joined a Facebook band in 2009 for fans of the fantasy series “The Wheel of Time”.
- In the group, I met Tulla, a South African woman with whom I had a lot in common.
- Over the years, we talked online, learning that we had a strange quantity in common, so we got married.
This January, I looked out, and there was still a part of me that I didn’t understand well that I was seeing lush green grass instead of snow up to my chest. If, a few years ago, you had told me that I would marry and live in a completely different hemisphere from where I grew up, I would not believe you. I would have trusted you even less if you told me it happened almost completely by chance.
It all started by reading a series of books, “The Wheel of Time”, a fantasy opus where the extraordinary coincidences follow the three main characters for the 14 books race. I was a massive fan and in 2009, I joined a group of Facebook fans dedicated to the series. In the late 2000s, Facebook groups also had discussion forums, and this is where I first met Tayla.
At one point, we were the only two people we held one of these topics of alive discussion, so I understood, why not add it as a friend? It would certainly be easier than to continue to take up space in a public forum. I had not added anyone else to the group as a friend, but it seemed cute.
In addition, she became much more than an online friend.
Tulla and I learned that we had a lot in common
It was South Africa, and I was Canadian, a living world far away, with these books being the only thing we seemed in common.
But our first coincidence came immediately after we started talking online. We were both recently thrown, both of our first respective relationships. Ok, quite right. We were both teens, so no Biggie, right?
But then it started to become strange. At that time, I lived in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Esainably, Tayla actually had some families living in Ottawa. Despite me, when I was driving around the city to get to work, half of her extended family was on the road.
His author and wife first met face -to -face on Skype. Chris jaworski’s courtesy
Of all the countries in the world where her family could be transferred, where southern Africans are likely to end, I realized that Ottawa was low in the list. I had never met a South Africa before, and now I knew a uncle and whose grandmother were a five-minute car away.
This is where coincidences began, but they probably didn’t end here. For the coming years, we talked most of the weekends, but a weekend in 2011, we both appeared on the other end of Skype with our swollen cheeks and our eyes were tied. It turns out, we both had removed our teeth of wisdom on the same day and had not mentioned it in the other.
During our years of online friendship, coincidences began to accumulate, so much that we were not even surprised. We realized quite soon that we had finally met our match for “lord of the rings” smallness. Once, our respective aunts both had surgeries within one week from one another. One other time, I discovered that her best friend, what persuaded her to read the “wheel of time”, was born on the same day as me.
Our mutual love for travel, musicians and animals eventually all signaled something bigger.
Felt as if we belonged together
Undoubtedly, for someone who had read the “wheel of time” saga and knew the importance of chance in the series that began our friendship, it took me a long time to realize that these coincidences showed one thing: we were perfect for each other.
We may have born 8,000 miles and a hemisphere away, but luck was directing us to each other.
We got married in 2017 in South Africa, where we live now, and we quoted the “wheel of time” At our wedding ceremony.
But the strange curves of fate and synchrony have not stopped in the years we have now been together. A couple of years ago, we visited Scotland, realizing on the journey that both of our grandparents had roots in Scottish cities just two hours from one another. One of those cities also happened to be the city of the birth of the proclamation, whose song, “I will be (500 miles)”, Tayla went down the line on our wedding day years ago.
Everyone two years, I reread “Wheel of Time”, and I am again hit by the full fate of all. The random chance that I would find my future wife through a series of completely unrelated coincidences never manages to amaze me when I think about it. Some coincidences made me believe in my instincts, leave Canada, move 8,000 miles away, and find the love of my life.